The Dead

by Donna Augustine

  “If I don’t?” he asked, his voice raspy as he tried to conserve the air he used to breathe while my knife restricted it.

  “Then you’ll die here, instead of maybe living another day.” I might not have been willing to kill him in the middle of Bert’s, but he was going to die today.

  “From what I hear, I’m dead anyway.”

  I heard a thread of hope in that sentence and used it to my advantage. I pressed the knife firmer to his neck. “Should I take that as you are choosing to die here? You walk a bit, you might figure out a way to get this knife off your throat. Maybe I’m the one that dies?” Not likely, but you always had to throw them a carrot, grease the wheels, so to speak.

  He moved forward toward the trees, like they all did when they saw a possibility of clinging to life. I would’ve done the same; that was how come I knew it would work. When it came to death, nothing in this world really wanted to die. Not the plants, animals, people, or even the monsters.

  We got to the place I would normally stop but encouraged him on farther. After the evil eye Bert had been throwing my way, I figured a little more distance from the hole might be a good call. I kept him moving for another half a mile. I pulled my knife away and gave him a shove.

  This was the part that always got sticky, but maybe if I just did it enough, I would figure out a winning tactic one of these times. Don’t they say practice makes perfect? No one ever heard them say practice makes you a great big failure. No one ever said that. I didn’t know who exactly “they” were, but they really knew their shit, because stuff they said had been around a long frigging time.

  Although when they said every cloud had a silver lining, they didn’t bother to elaborate that it was often lightning. I’d realized their wisdom left some leeway for interpretation.

  Still, I was putting my faith in practice as I watched his eyes shoot everywhere and the panic set in full force, hoping this wasn’t going to go bad like all the other times. “Now, you’re going to tell me exactly what you things are and why your people want me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a simple farmer.” He raised his hands in surrender, palms up, displaying a damning lack of calluses for the farmer he claimed to be.

  “Is it possible to cut through all the bullshit and you just tell me what I want to know?” They always denied it until the end. One of these times, I was going to get something original.

  “I’m a farmer.” He was shaking his head emphatically, and I could smell the sickly sweet odor that always clung to the Dark Walkers grow stronger, ruining the nice forest bouquet of pine trees. They always smelled the worst right before they—

  And there he went, trying to shoot around me to get back to his horse, right on schedule.

  I hit his back with the force of someone much heavier and we landed on the ground with a thud. Flipping him over, I was going to try and reason with him one last time, but with the wrestling, things got messy and targets were found. Less than a few seconds later, I was staring down at another dead Dark Walker.

  I climbed off his still body, and a stray piece of his flesh hanging from my shirt caught my eye and led to a self-appraisal. “Just once, could it not end with me covered in black, goopy blood and guts? How am I supposed to lie convincingly when I look like this?” I demanded of the dead creature. Even if he’d been alive, the gaping wound in his chest probably would’ve prevented an answer.

  I grabbed a couple of leaves and tried to wipe off the worst of the mess that had somehow ended up on my pants.

  Cursing the entire way, I went and grabbed my shovel, one of the many I had stashed around the various holes, while debating whether I needed to move him out a little farther or if I could dig his grave where I’d killed him.

  2

  I stopped both horses about a twenty-minute brisk walk away from the Rock and unhooked the Dark Walker’s horse from mine. “Stay here. I’ll send someone out to find you soon, okay?”

  The pinto didn’t give any notice it understood me, but all the horses I’d brought to this pasture seemed to like the area, so I figured he’d catch on too and graze for a while. It was far enough that no one from the Rock would be lingering around to see what I was doing, but still technically Rock territory. You had to have a pretty big set of balls or a death wish to take anything off the Rock’s territory.

  I pressed my knees inward and Charlie moved us forward, knowing the way to get home on his own and just waiting for the go-ahead. I took the extra time to start working on my lies, which I was behind schedule on, since my mind kept wandering back to the look Bert gave me. I usually had my story straight before I rode back into the Rock.

  The large gate, a huge, rusted metal affair, started grinding open at my approach. I waved hello to Carmine, who stood behind the wheel that operated the monstrosity as I passed into the security of the walls.

  The metal gears were grinding closed behind me as Dax came into view, stepping right into my current path toward the stables and Charlie’s lunch.

  There was something about his presence that always kicked my heartbeat up a gear. It didn’t matter what the circumstances were, fight brewing or not. He could be dressed in dark work pants and a snug T, like he was now, or covered in mud for all it mattered. His pale eyes would fix upon me, a startling contrast to the rest of his dark features, and I’d feel like I’d just gotten a jolt of energy. Sometimes I wondered if it was his magic mingling with my own that caused it, because no human had ever made me feel so strongly.

  Maybe it was just him. People reacted differently to Dax, in one way or another. Some liked him more, some less. Others, which were the good majority, feared him.

  Even now, after being here for weeks and him not laying hands on a single soul, I watched as people changed their direction, giving him plenty of space where he stood in the middle of the road.

  When I looked at him, I got it. Not that I was scared around him, but why others might be. Sometimes I wondered if people sensed what lay beneath, as if their survival instincts knew on some level that something wasn’t as it seemed. He didn’t help the matter with the hard expression he wore. He had the look of someone who’d killed his fair share and might be killing some more real soon.

  Unfortunately, according to Bert’s reaction, so did I. Maybe that was why I wasn’t scared of him. I’d realized since I’d been in the Wilds that sometimes death was just part of the day. It didn’t necessarily make you a bad person; sometimes it just meant someone else had to die so that you could live.

  And there was something nice about knowing the toughest beast in the Wilds had your back.

  Maybe that’s all it was, his beastly magic. Dax was unsettling enough. If I dug too deep into my psyche over our connection, I might not like what I found. I’d decided a while ago that I needed to lower my expectations to just needing enough to get by. That concept had recently expanded to not dwelling on why I might need it either.

  Wandering around in the mess of my thoughts was more than my mental stability could handle at the moment. That kind of stuff could lead to some ugly revelations I wasn’t particularly in the mood to acknowledge.

  Dax stepped forward and grabbed Charlie’s bridle. “Let me help you to the stables.” It was a little too pushy to be a true offer.

  “Sure,” I replied in the same tone I’d use to say lovely morning, as if I didn’t know a lecture was about to come either before or after the what, where, and when questions.

  I didn’t like to play stupid, but there were times when stupid was the only smart choice. Any acknowledgement that I knew what he was up to could be construed as admitting guilt. I wasn’t planning on admitting anything. Not until there were no other options. It wasn’t anyone else’s business what I did, not even his. What did he take me for? One of those people who paid someone to listen to them?

  Instead of thinking about all this stupid shit as we neared the barn, I needed to get a story in place. No one was going to accuse me of having boring lie
s.

  We entered the stables too quickly to come up with anything good. Dax looked at Pete, the stable master, then back to me. He couldn’t possibly know I was bringing all the horses, could he? Dax kept staring, his eyes narrowing as I sat there playing stupid, according to plan.

  Shit, he did know that, too. A soft sigh escaped, carrying my ploy of stupidity with it, letting it dissipate on the air of the guilty. I tilted my head toward the open stable door. It was the loudest acknowledgment he was going to get, and even that was much louder than what I’d planned. I wasn’t sure why all my good intentions of lying and keeping secrets blew apart once he got involved.

  His own sigh, tinted more with condemnation, joined my own. His hands tensed on the reins he still held. “Pete, I heard there’s a loose horse roaming that same pasture to the east again, just waiting for someone to walk right up to it and bring it back here.”

  Pete, blissfully unaware of all the negative air floating around him, scratched his peppered beard. “Another one? And tame? Not a wild?” The scratching didn’t stop but migrated to his almost bald scalp. “That’s the third one this week. Can’t imagine where they’re all coming from.”

  “Yeah, real strange,” Dax said, and I wished Pete would shut up. We all knew how many horses had been found and no one needed him to keep count for us. Big know-it-all.

  Dax jerked a thumb toward the door as Pete neared us. “Why don’t you go try and round it up? I’ll help her stable Charlie.”

  Pete walked out of the stables as he muttered something about strange times and foolish people.

  “Where’d you go this time?” Dax asked as soon as it was just us in the stables.

  I turned to drop off the horse, taking the opportunity to break the stare-down I’d somehow entered into without consent. If I just looked away, it would be a loss.

  His hands caught my waist before my feet hit the ground and then I had an old wooden barn wall behind me, and him blocking the way out.

  I was already amped up from the recent kill. His magical overflow, as I’d come to call the weird energy he couldn’t seem to keep to himself like a polite magic person should, was spilling all over the damn place in agitating waves.

  “Can’t you keep that stuff to yourself?” I hated the way it made my skin flush and my breathing weird. The closer he got, the worse it was, too.

  “What stuff?”

  “Your magic stuff. Can’t you turn it down?” If I could, he should be able to. I didn’t go around stoking up the burning in my chest all willy-nilly with no regard to others’ sensitivities.

  “I’m not doing anything.” Then he was looking at my neck and his fingers were grazing the skin under my jaw, making the air heavier and my breathing that much worse.

  I barely felt his touch before he was removing his hand and flicking something to the ground. “You need to clean up better in the stream before you come back. There was a rotting chunk of flesh on your neck.”

  His arms crossed as he stood there, and somehow I’d ended up back in the stare-down. My eyes shot to the door of the barn; I wondered if I was quick enough to scoot past him if I set my magic to aim for there.

  Then all I saw was his chest as he repositioned. I looked up at his face, having limited options. “Clearly, you already know. What’s left to talk about?” It wasn’t the brilliant lie I’d planned on coming up with, but he had a way of kicking me into defensive mode. Next time I needed to make sure I had my lie planned out before I got back.

  “I. Want. Specifics.”

  “I. Went. Hunting.” Nope, from his expression, that wasn’t specific enough.

  “Again.”

  It was strange how that one word sounded so much heavier than anything he’d said yet.

  “Yes.” I tried to take a step to the side as he mirrored me.

  He planted his hand by the side of my head, blocking the path to my right. “Even after I told you not to?”

  “If you recall, I didn’t agree to not go anymore.” I didn’t elaborate on how I didn’t have to do anything he said. I figured that part was implied. He was a smart man. He’d figure it out.

  “This place is already hot. The more you kill, the more you’re luring them here. What don’t you understand about that?” He wasn’t screaming, but that meant nothing.

  “Mama didn’t raise no fool.” Technically, Mama didn’t really raise me, but I didn’t think I should be penalized for something out of my control. It was a good saying and I was using it.

  “What?” he said, not understanding where that came from. Seriously, he needed to read more.

  Since he didn’t quite understand what I was saying, I’d have to spell it out for him. “My point is I get it, but am I supposed to sit on my hands and wait for you to tell me what to do?” It wasn’t like I was stupid. I got the basic logic. I just didn’t care for how he wanted to do things.

  It was the same fight we’d been having for the past week and a half and it was heading in the same predictable direction. It was like my entire existence was stuck on repeat, just like that busted-up CD player Bookie had found in the last ruin, some place he’d said used to be called Atlanta. Same lyrics, over and over and over.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do, because you’re fucking up my plans.” His forehead was going to touch mine soon if he didn’t back up.

  “What about my plans?” I asked, refusing to stand there meekly and be dictated to.

  “What plans? You don’t have plans. You have killing sprees,” he shot back as we fought for dominance of the space.

  “Exactly! Kill them all. That’s my plan and it’s better than doing nothing.” Damn, it was getting warm in here. It was like he lit my magic on fire somehow, and hell if I knew why.

  If I didn’t know better and magic wasn’t involved, I’d say it was just like the scenes I’d read about in my sexy book, right before the girl and the guy got together. Except Dax didn’t want me like that. He’d already turned me down once, and the one time he’d kissed me, he acted like it was a mistake.

  So of course I didn’t want him, because hell if I’d ever want someone who didn’t want me. Nope. This was just some weird magic commingling.

  He could say he wasn’t doing anything, but I knew he felt it too. I saw the tension in the line of his neck. I knew he was breathing harder, even as he must have noticed my own breathing the way he was staring at my lips.

  He pushed off the wall and took a few steps back away from me as if it were getting to him, too. Good. Maybe he’d stop doing it.

  “I can’t fucking believe I’m over a barrel for the first time in my life by an eighteen-year-old twit who thinks she knows best.”

  I pushed off the wall, getting mad at the same dig about my age. “Why are you so obsessed with my age? Eighteen, eighteen, eighteen. I’m sick of hearing it. I know how old I am and it isn’t that young. Half the women out here are married with kids by eighteen. I’m an adult and can make my own choices.”

  “They didn’t live your life.”

  He didn’t mention the first chunk of my life had been wasted in the Cement Giant, but I knew exactly what he meant. “You’re just mad because you’ll never be the man Moobie is.”

  He was standing by the barn door, his profile to me. He turned his head, tilting it in my direction, and I prepared for the bullet he was loading up. “No one will be the man Moobie is because Moobie isn’t the man he is. Moobie doesn’t exist. He’s made up.”

  My hands shot to my hips. “See, now why’d you have to go and say that? We were having a normal discussion and you have to go and throw that in my face? I’m not crazy. I know Moobie isn’t real.”

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you. I don’t. I give up. You win. Go fucking kill whatever you want and take care of your own damn horse.” I watched as he walked out of the barn, leaving a vacuum of heat where there’d just been an inferno.

  “Now was that so hard?” I yelled after him as my hand went to the
spot on my neck he’d touched earlier. Shit. I’d thought that was wetness from my shirt before he’d removed the chunk off me. I reached down and grabbed a handful of hay and wiped the leftover blood off, wondering if there was a mirror in here somewhere, but thinking of what Pete normally looked like, I highly doubted it.

  “You didn’t get it all,” Bookie said as he walked in the stables, grabbed another handful of hay, and walked over to help me clean off a spot an inch over.

  “Thanks.”

  “Yep.”

  I knew that tone. “Not you, too,” I said as I undid Charlie’s saddle and started pulling it from his back.

  Bookie took the weight from me and ushered me aside. “It’s dangerous.”

  I stepped out of his way. “I’ve got it under control.”

  He nodded in a brusque, very un-Bookie-like manner. “Fudge made lunch,” he said, switching topics and then helping me wipe down Charlie and get him settled in his stall without saying anything else.

  I stared over Charlie’s back, but no matter what position Bookie was in, his big hazel eyes wouldn’t meet mine. It was almost worse than when Dax wouldn’t stop staring at me. I tossed down my brush and rested my arms on Charlie. “Bookie, I’m doing what I feel I have to. I thought you understood that?”

  Another nod as he finished his side and left the stall. I followed him out.

  “I don’t know what you think, but I’m not doing anything crazy out there.” Crazy for me, anyway, but we all lived in a prison of our own realities. In my reality, killing a few Dark Walkers a week was the only thing keeping me sane.

  He shut the stall and finally spoke. “I don’t understand why you won’t let me come with you. Why do you always disappear? You shouldn’t go out there alone. Not even the toughest here go out alone.”

  “That’s not true. Some people go out of the walls alone all the time.”

  “Who? Rocky and Dax? Dal, you can’t compare them to you.”