by Boye, Kody
“Shh!” Jessiah hissed, jabbing a finger to his lips. “You guys gotta be quiet.”
“We are being quiet,” Mark said.
“That’s not quiet enough.” Jessiah raised his hand and started to cough. When the fit didn’t end for a good three minutes, Eagle stepped into the room with a glass of tea and pressed his hand to the boy’s upper back.
“There,” Eagle said, kneading the bones at the base of Jessiah’s spine.
Jessiah coughed three more times. He slipped the glass off the bowl in Eagle’s hand and downed a few swallows of the contents within. “Thank,” he coughed, “you.”
“Drink. Slowly. Then suck on this.” The Indian set a cube of caramel before him. “It’ll help your throat.”
Nodding, Jessiah bowed his head and took a moment to regain his composure. When he tilted his head up, Dakota caught tears rolling down the sides of his face and lines crossing the surface of his eyes. Blood trailed down one side of his lip.
“Jessiah?” Dakota frowned.
“I’m fine,” Jessiah said. He reached up to brush the blood away from his lip. “Really. I am.”
Dakota cast a wary glance in Jamie’s direction, receiving a shrug in response.
“Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes!” Kevin called out.
“Thank you,” Dakota called back.
He caught sight of Jessiah’s bloodshot eyes as he rose and made his way out of the room.
“You don’t think he’s got it, do you?”
“Got what?”
“It.”
Jamie paused in midstride. He laced his fingers behind his head, turned, then gave Dakota an uneasy look that could have easily broken a mirror into three pieces. “You think he got bit, don’t you?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“If he got bit, he’d have died a long time ago.”
“Maybe he only got nicked.”
“What?”
“You know, nicked. Only just barely bitten or scratched.”
“Where the hell did you get that from?”
“I heard it on the radio back when me and Steve were still in his apartment.”
“It’s an infection, Dakota. It doesn’t matter if you get only a little nick or scratch. It works all the same.”
“I don’t know,” Dakota sighed, seating himself on the bottom bunk. “Goddammit. Now I’m worried about this.”
“It’s a good thing to be concerned about.”
“But these people opened their home to us.”
“It’s not like we’re staying forever.” Jamie fell to his knees in front of Dakota. He braced his hands against the younger man’s thighs and leaned forward to look at him. “It’s gonna be ok. I swear.”
“You’ve never let anything happen to us.”
“And I never will.” Jamie paused. “Look, if something goes wrong, we’ll just leave, simple as that.”
“Maybe you should get the map from Kevin tonight.”
“I will.”
“Just in case we have to make a quick exit.”
“I get the impression that Kevin’s not a bad man. Concerned for his family, yes, but not bad.”
“I didn’t think he was bad either. I’m just worried about Jessiah.”
“We’re behind a locked door every night while we sleep. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“I know,” Dakota sighed. “I just…I just don’t want anything to happen.”
Jamie wrapped his arms around Dakota and pulled him close. “I know,” he whispered. “Neither do I.”
A single knock at the door woke him from sleep.
“Dakota,” Jessiah whispered. “Dakota.”
Dakota rolled out of bed and opened the door.
“I want you to come with me,” Jessiah said, before Dakota could even speak. “I need to show you something.”
“Show me what?” Dakota asked, taking a moment to examine the boy’s red eyes and his hollow cheeks. “You don’t look good at all.”
“I feel like shit. Come on.”
“Give me a minute.”
Closing the door, Dakota made his way over to the bed, grabbed his shoes and pulled them onto his feet. He took a moment to look at Jamie and reconsider his actions before he left the room and started down the stairs, following close behind the younger boy’s heels.
Should I go alone with him?
Though he could easily understand the younger boys’ childish excitement of having new and possibly-exciting people in the house, he couldn’t fathom why Jessiah, a boy only one year younger than him, would want the attention.
Maybe he’s lonely.
Regardless, his unease at the young man’s quickly-deteriorating condition didn’t put him in any heightened frame of mind. If anything, it made him all the more uncomfortable being around him.
Maybe you’re just overthinking this, he thought as Jessiah opened the front door. Maybe he really does have bronchitis, like he said he did.
Jessiah coughed. Dakota froze. “You coming?” the younger man asked.
Dakota stepped out of the doorway as Jessiah shut the door behind them “Where are we going?” Dakota asked.
“Out to the barn.”
“What do you want to show me?”
“You’ll see.”
The hairs on Dakota’s neck stood on end. It was like something had just taken its finger and drawn it slightly over the skin, just high enough to where he could barely feel the sensation of being touched. He took a moment to consider the fact that it could have been the wind or just his imagination playing tricks on him, but after a moment, he stopped in place and refused to move any further.
He just wants to show you something. He watched the boy continue to make his way across his field. He’s sick and probably losing his mind from not having anyone his own age to talk to.
Jessiah stopped moving.
Dakota swallowed a lump in his throat.
“Are you coming?” the younger boy asked.
“How do I know you’re not going to hurt me?”
“You think I could hurt you?” Jessiah laughed, turning, the effects of sickness more than clear on his face in the paling light. “You’re joking, right?”
“Why won’t you tell me what we’re going to see?”
“Why won’t you tell me about you and Jamie?”
It’s always obvious, something said, when you’re trying to hide the thing that can hurt you the most.
“What?” Dakota asked, a laugh escaping his chest.
“Just because Dad’s too stupid to see it doesn’t mean I can’t.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I know what’s going on, Dakota. I know you and Jamie are more than friends.”
The same finger that had graced his neck moments before returned, this time complete with its fellows. Five individual fingers waltzed up his neck and slid into his hair before encapsulating the base of his scalp within their palm. The tips of each finger stroked his head as though they were his mother and he were her child, a bad boy sulking after he’d just been punished for doing something wrong.
“I don’t understand,” Dakota said. “What do you mean?”
“You reach to hold each other’s hands, then stop before you do it; you look at each other differently than how two normal guy friends would; you’re almost always too close for comfort.”
“What are you getting at?” Dakota asked. “What’s the big deal?”
“That’s what the people who came here before you asked, when they tried to steal a few cans of food before they left. ‘What’s the big deal if we take a few cans of food? It’s only a few.’ That’s what she said. Dad shot the bitch in the face when her boyfriend pulled a knife and pointed it at my little brother.”
With nothing to say in response, Dakota let the breath he’d been holding escape his chest and allowed his hands to ball into fists at his side. It took more strength than he imagined to keep himself from shaking.
/>
“You still coming?” Jessiah asked, turning to start toward the barn.
“What if I don’t?”
“I’ll tell Dad. He probably won’t shoot you, but he’ll sure as hell kick you out. He doesn’t like it when people keep secrets from them, especially when those secrets can turn out to be bigger things.”
Dakota said nothing. He simply started forward and continued on toward the barn.
“I need you to listen to me before I do this,” Jessiah said, turning to look Dakota straight in the eye.
“Ok.”
“Whatever you do, don’t make any loud, sudden noises. Keep your hands away from the stall and don’t get any closer than you have to. She may be blind, but she can still hear your footsteps.”
She?
Jessiah narrowed his eyes, waiting for a response. Nodding in acknowledgement, Dakota steadied his posture and allowed himself a deep breath before the younger man stepped forward and undid the two latches that made up the top half of the stall door.
“Quiet,” Jessiah warned.
The young man pulled the door open.
Dakota braced himself for what he might see.
Does Death hide in dark places, or is He all around us?
Darkness shrouded the inside of the stall.
“Diana,” Jessiah whispered. “Come out.”
A flicker of movement shifted inside the hollow, dark place.
When the thing known as Diana stepped forward, revealing herself to the world in brutal, ugly detail, Dakota felt as though the last shroud of innocence had faded from the world like a moth slowly dying once caught in a candle’s flame.
“What is she?” Dakota asked.
“My horse.”
Her face had lost most of its beauty during the undetermined amount of time she’d been locked in her stall. She would have been beautiful during her life, glorious in the face of creation and remarkable in the aspect of pride. Sterling, they would have said, a creature marked for her soft white fur and her gorgeous black locks. Death had not treated her kindly, though he had spared her mercy. Her eyes were no longer existent, long-since gone into the back of her head, and her nostrils had dried out and resembled nothing more than cracked paint on a dirty wall. Perhaps the most ominous of her features, however, were her lips. Bloated, drawn away from her teeth to reveal porcelain-white bone tipped with flecks of grey, she appeared to be a fly poised at the funeral of her feast, her lips puckering and retracting in the shadows of her glorious night.
While looking at her, heart trembling and eyes slowly beginning to weep, Dakota felt sorrowful. Just the sight of such a beautiful creature ravaged in undeath was enough to force tears from his eyes. “What happened?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Jessiah said. “I thought she was sick, so I brought her into the stall the first day we came up here and tried to get her to go inside. She wouldn’t cooperate with me, so I thought something was wrong. I’ve had her since I was thirteen and thought I knew everything about her. It turns out that I didn’t know she’d died and come back to life sometime before we got here.”
“She bit you, didn’t she?”
Jessiah popped the first few buttons on his flannel shirt and parted its collar, revealing a slowly-blackening bite on his shoulder.
“Does your dad know about this?”
“Dad doesn’t know anything,” Jessiah said.
“You’re putting your family in danger.”
“She bit me nearly two months ago. She doesn’t have what they have.”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s…it’s not whatever makes them come back.”
“You’re saying this is something different?”
“It has to be. It doesn’t affect animals. Nothing has brought the animals back to life. I should be dead by now.”
“Is this the reason you’re so sick?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was healing, Dakota. I’ve been treating it since I got bit and it looked like it was getting better. Then the skin started to turn black and I got this weird chest cough…my god. It hurts so fucking much.”
“It’s ok,” Dakota said, stepping forward. “You’re gonna get better.”
“Don’t touch me!” Jessiah cried, pushing Dakota back when he came too close. “Don’t touch me, Dakota. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t want to die!”
“You’re not gonna die,” Dakota said. “Don’t think that.”
“It’s kind of hard to believe when you look that,” Jessiah said, pointing. Dakota turned his head. Diana’s nostrils flared at the sound of his breath passing from his lips. “You better go, Dakota. Someone’s gonna get suspicious if we’re both gone.”
“What about you?”
“They’ll just think I’m out smoking. Besides, I need a moment alone.”
Unsure what else to say or how else to comfort the younger man, Dakota turned and made his way out of the barn, but not without taking one last look back at Jessiah and the dead creature that had once brought the young man happiness.
Upon returning to the cabin, Dakota crept through the front door, took his shoes off, and made his way up the stairs, all the while cursing the wood beneath him and its seemingly-endless protest against him. It was as though they were alive and trying to scream the secret that so desperately wanted to be told, but couldn’t because it was trapped beneath the floorboards.
For a brief moment, Dakota entertained the notion that it was ghosts underneath the stairs making all the racket.
Help us, they said. We want them to know the truth.
When the image became too powerful in his brain, he shook his head and pushed open the door to the spare bedroom. It took less than a minute for him to crawl into bed and curl up alongside Jamie.
“Hmm?” Jamie murmured.
“Nothing,” Dakota whispered, turning his head up to look at the man. “Go back to sleep.”
Jamie’s featured softened almost immediately.
He didn’t hear me come back in.
Then again, there was always the distinct possibility that Jamie could have heard him leave earlier. Dakota didn’t dwell on it though. His thoughts kept returning to the barn, to that cold, dark place festering within the slowly-rotting structure and the morbid creature inside it.
She may be blind, but she can still hear your footsteps.
Could the dead understand that you were there? Could they, when physically materialized but emotionally gone, sense your feelings, your doubts, your fears? They said that ghosts lingered in places strong in power, but could they truly inhabit the dead once spiritually gone from the world?
“Do they?” he whispered into the room. “Do they even…?”
Though he didn’t finish his sentence in the hopes that the thought would not occur to him, it came anyway, drawn to his doubt like blind insects on a dark, lonely night.
Do they even have souls?
Shivering, unnerved at the prospect that the dead were nothing more than dry husks, he drew up against Jamie’s side and tried to block his mind from any further assaulting thoughts, but was almost immediately targeted by his own aggressive emotions. The next thought to occur to him shook him even more, forcing him back to a childhood unguided and full of wandering doubt.
Forcing his eyes shut, he gave in to the thought that threatened to send him into hysterics if he did not let it speak.
Do we have souls?
The dagger slid into his heart.
A startled sob escaped his frame.
He couldn’t allow himself to dwell on that question.
Madness begins in such small ways. When breath is allowed, life begins.
Dakota stayed in bed for most of the morning. When Jamie woke and tried to rouse him from sleep, he complained of a stomachache and said to leave him alone. He didn’t bother to mention that he hadn’t slept for most of the night, nor did he say anything about the shadows that flickered in the corner of the room, casting doubt over his eyes like
black tape sewn over his eyes with knitting needles. He kept expecting Diana to appear from the darkness and to look at him with her hollow, dead eyes, to judge him in ways only the dead could.
If she can even see.
Though Jessiah said she had no such ability, he knew better.
Earlier, in that cold, dark barn, he had felt something looking at him.
The blind couldn’t see. He would have felt no such thing had Diana lost her vision.
Curling into a ball in the hopes that he could steal the last traces of Jamie’s warmth, he wrapped the blanket around his body and sunk back against the wall, willing himself to close his eyes and to force light over his darkened frame of mind.
Force it, he thought. Force the light to come.
He squeezed his eyes together as hard as he could.
Pain blossomed in the corners of his vision.
A faint light winked in the distance.
There. You did it—it’s coming! It’s—
Two black eyes burst into view.
Frozen, Dakota could only watch as Diana’s lips curled back over her teeth. A wisp of air escaped her cracked nostrils like steam hissing from pipes. Her mouth opened.
The most horrible sound Dakota had ever heard echoed forth and yanked him from sleep.
Unable to sleep any longer and with fresh tears in his eyes, he pushed himself out of bed and ran toward the door.
If he could not fight the wolves, he would face the sheep.
“Hey,” Jamie said, looking up as Dakota entered the room.
“Hey,” Dakota replied, collapsing in the seat next to Jamie.
Leaning forward, Dakota pulled his socks up his feet and laced his shoes, sighing when he turned his head up to face the stares that greeted him. Most turned their eyes immediately, like the younger boys, who feigned interest in something else, while Desmond and Kevin looked on with wary, unsure eyes. Jessiah, meanwhile, watched him like a hawk, gaze indifferent as Dakota locked eyes with him.
You know, he wanted to say, but kept his words to himself.
“Your stomach better?” Jamie asked.
“It’s better,” Dakota nodded. “Did you ever get the map?”
“We got it sorted out,” Kevin said, leaning over the couch to set a half-empty can of apples in Dakota’s hand. “They’re fresh. Well, mostly…we canned them a few months back.”
