The Bones of the Earth- The Complete Collection

by Scott Hale

  The Gravedigger and Gary did as they were told, sitting on their hands to stop the foul-smelling grass from touching their bare flesh.

  Mr. Haemo laughed at their obvious discomfort. He suckled stolen blood from the well.

  “I need to track two people,” the Gravedigger said, too anxious to wait any longer. He’d heard stories of those who spent too much time on the isle; he’d even walked on their backs.

  Mr. Haemo’s wings started to buzz behind the flesh cloak. “I don’t feel compelled to help you, Atticus. You spurn me and mine every chance you get.”

  “Two soldiers from Eldrus. Blythe… and Bon. You can have every drop.”

  “In that case, you have a deal.” Mr. Haemo snapped his fingers to complete the contract. “But first, a down payment.”

  The Gravedigger held his arm out over the pool. The blood grew restless. It churned and spilled over itself, like an addict in need of a fix.

  “No need,” the giant mosquito said. He waved his hand until the Gravedigger withdrew.

  Mr. Haemo snapped his fingers. In an instant, the thicket filled with millions of mosquitoes. Sound and space coagulated into a thick tar of buzzing wings.

  The Gravedigger tried to move, but the pounding waves of gaunt, gore-filled bodies kept him in place. He could feel their mouthparts probing the cracks in his flesh, searching for blood vessels to pierce and sup. His muscles quivered. He tried to stay upright. The insects were landing on him now, slowly weighing him down by the thousands. The Gravedigger broke out into a cold sweat. When he could literally feel the last of his blood leaving his veins, he knew he had made a—

  Mr. Haemo snapped his fingers. With that, his children were gone, spirited away to the secret place from which they’d emerged. “We’re good now.”

  Exhausted, drained, the Gravedigger fell forward, head first toward the pool.

  “Atticus, stop!” Gary grabbed his friend and held him there. His ghoul flesh, rigid and harsh, pricked the Gravedigger’s back.

  Mr. Haemo snickered. “You know, Gary, you don’t have to go through all the ceremonies to get here. We’re cool.”

  The ghoul shook his head. “You say that now, but the day I don’t, you’ll have changed your mind.” He scoured the Gravedigger’s body for the bites that should’ve been there but weren’t.

  Mr. Haemo shrugged. Again, he put his hands over the blood well, but this time, a light came through the waters and shone into his thousand emotionless eyes.

  “Khr’ka elhx uhri. Tch’xa slvf uhri, Mhr’la roij uhri. In blood we’re born and by blood we’re bound. Through this, their blood, the hidden will be found!”

  Mr. Haemo submerged his entire head into the pool and sat there a moment, the crimson waters bubbling around the base of his neck. The skin cloak slid off his body, giving his wings free rein to beat violently in the air.

  “Is he… is he doing it?” The Gravedigger lifted his head weakly and stared into his friend’s dead eyes.

  “He’s doing something.”

  Mr. Haemo threw his head back, slinging a rope of blood across the panting ground. “They’re in here, I found them,” the mosquito said, blood pouring down his face.

  Barely conscious, the Gravedigger whispered, “W-where are they?”

  “Are you trying to waste my time?” Mr. Haemo rubbed his proboscis. He looked like he was seriously considering plunging it into the Gravedigger’s chest.

  “What? No? Where are they?”

  Mr. Haemo glanced at Gary.

  Gary shrugged. “I’m just tagging along.”

  “They’re in the house, Atticus,” Mr. Haemo said. “They’re in your house.”

  CHAPTER IV

  Head throbbing, heart pounding, the Gravedigger bounded towards his house. No soldiers, no screams. With Gary following close behind, he staggered across the yard, crawled up the porch, and burst through the front door.

  “Clementine,” he shouted. “Will!”

  The Gravedigger dragged himself through the house, knocking over a vase here, a shelf there. Dizzied and dead-eyed, he went in circles around the first floor, calling their names while he beat his fists and feet against the walls and floors. He darted through the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen. He checked every closet, but found nothing.

  He made his way to the front of the house and headed up the stairs. The Gravedigger sniffed the air for the smells of men and metal, leather and liquor. He blinked, widened his eyes; he saw everything through a fog of exhaustion. With every step he took, the fog thickened.

  He stumbled off the stairs and ran through doorways, shouting their names in his head rather than saying them aloud. Where were they? He checked the spare rooms; they hadn’t seen visitors in several years. Tears fell from his eyes as he grew frantic and faint. Where were they? And in his state, could he even do anything to save them?

  “Atticus, god damn. What are you hollering about?” Clementine barked from outside.

  Like teeth, the stairs bit the Gravedigger’s ass as he tripped and slid down them. Clementine stood on the porch, looking in the house, her hands gloved, her face masked, and a machete—his machete—in her freckly grip. Her head nodded, nodded, nodded, as he went down, down, down each step.

  He smacked against the landing, legs spread, as though he were giving birth to the pain he’d just made.

  Clementine smiled and laughed. When she saw her husband wasn’t doing either, she turned grim. “Atticus, what? What’s wrong? What happened to you? Shit,” she said, going to him and taking both of his outstretched hands. “Come here.”

  The Gravedigger held onto his wife as though she’d already died. She smelled like a bonfire. He buried his face in her neck and left some tears there for her to wonder about later. “Where’s Will? Is he okay? Did the soldiers come?”

  Clementine let out a kind laugh as she patted his back. She kissed his head through her mask. “Honey, what the hell you been up to? I’m fine. Will’s fine.”

  When his senses settled and the feel of his wife balanced him, the Gravedigger stepped back and said, “Why you dressed like that?”

  With her husband in tow, Clementine brought them out back, behind the barn, where Will, equally masked and machete equipped, stood over a burning pit. It was the grave his father had been digging a day ago, for Brinton.

  Will nodded at the Gravedigger and slid through broken barn boards that still needed fixing.

  With enough blood built up to be more or less himself, the Gravedigger scowled at his wife and moseyed over to the fire. “Clementine, you shouldn’t—”

  Clementine’s mouth dropped open and she put her hand to her ear. “What’s that? I didn’t quite… What you say?” She smiled and stuck out her tongue.

  Ever since she’d been little, Clementine had a severe allergy to being told what to do. It made her heated and gave her the shakes. If it was a man who’d done it, she came down with a full-blown case of go-fuck-yourselfitus.

  “It had to happen, Atticus. It was spreading to the barn. Once it got out of the annex, you know we wouldn’t be able to stop it.”

  The Gravedigger looked into the pit. Six feet further down, writhing together like a ball of snakes, the vermillion veins hissed and popped, staining the sides of the grave with their bright blood.

  “Coming through,” Will said.

  With an armful of veins, he brushed past his father and dumped the quivering things into the pit. He stood there a moment, admiring what he surely considered manly work, and lumbered back into the barn.

  “I went and saw Mr. Haemo.” The Gravedigger closed his eyes and screwed up his face.

  Clementine slapped the back of his head. “Atticus, what the hell is wrong with you? Why? To find out what these were? It don’t matter. You always make things so damn complicated.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I am, really.” The machete fell from her grip and stuck in the ground. She kissed the Gravedigger’s cheek and said, “You know we know how much you do for us, right?�
��

  “I know it. I’m keeping tabs.” The Gravedigger brushed his nose against his wife’s. “Mr. Haemo said soldiers had come. You didn’t see any?”

  “Been out here ever since you left with Gary. There’s a couple of critters in the graveyard causing a ruckus, but other than that, it’s been quiet.”

  Will carried out another few pounds of veins.

  “It’s coming out of Brinton. I can’t bury him like that,” the Gravedigger said.

  “Atticus, no one’s going to miss him. He’s got no family left here. Unless you think Gary would want a bite out of him, it’s probably just best to burn him.”

  The Gravedigger shook his head. “Gary thinks it’s those things from the Nameless Forest that have come out of Brinton. You know, those plants. The ones that make everyone crazy. I don’t expect he’d touch them, even if we paid him to.”

  “All right then,” Clementine said, pulling the machete out of the earth. “Let’s get to work.”

  It was half past the Black Hour when the Gravedigger and his clan of vein-cutters finally called it quits. They’d cleared the barn and the annex of the overgrowth, and now sat on a pile of hay in aching bliss. The horses there, apathetic as usual, neighed every few minutes, trying their best to guilt the humans into a late night snack.

  The Gravedigger, rubbing his utterly useless arms, analyzed the annex from where he’d collapsed. As difficult as they were to remove, the vermillion veins hadn’t actually damaged anything in the room. Sure, Brinton’s body had literally burst open, like a sack full of sharp objects, but Brinton was dead and, well, it was Brinton.

  “This is something we don’t tell anyone else about, isn’t it?” Will said, sniffling his nose. The dark circles under his eyes were getting darker with every passing second. He needed his precious beauty sleep.

  “Mmm,” the Gravedigger mumbled.

  “Can I marry Hazel?” Will blurted out.

  The Gravedigger looked at his wife. “If you got to ask, then you got your answer.”

  “You only been seeing her a year, Will.” Clementine lay back in the hay and neighed at the neighing horse looming over her head. “Tell me five things about her you like. And me and your father, we’ll consider.”

  Some color came back to the boy’s cheeks while he fidgeted and fretted over what to say. “You guys don’t know her like I do. Okay, listen.” He smiled, giggled, which made his parents do the same. “Listen, okay. Listen. Number one, okay, she’s beautiful.”

  “Beautiful?” Clementine repeated. “Well, I’ll be.”

  “Two,” Will waved his hands. “Two, okay, she’s like the smartest girl in town.”

  “She don’t exactly have much competition,” the Gravedigger remarked.

  “Three.” Will had gone red in the face. If he weren’t so tired, he would’ve had something smart to say to his doubters. “Three, she’s… she’s…”

  “Uh oh,” Clementine said, snickering. “Beautiful and smart? That’s great and all—”

  “Funny!” Will interrupted. “She’s funny, you jerks.”

  The Gravedigger shook his head and made a face. “If you say so, Son.”

  “Forget it. Forget it.” Will stood up, and on shaking legs dragged himself to the front of the barn. “You hate her. I get it. It’s fine.”

  “Holy Child, you’re dramatic.” Clementine covered her eyes with her arm. “We’re just kidding you, kid. You know we love Hazel.”

  The Gravedigger nodded and gave his son the thumbs-up. “She’s a catch. But you’re thirteen. You can’t even clean up after yourself. Gary’s got better breath than you. Take it slow. The world won’t, so make sure you do.”

  “You and Mom got married at seventeen,” Will said. His voice rose an octave. A sound outside startled him.

  The Gravedigger lay beside his wife, cheek to her chest. “Yeah, but we didn’t want you coming out a bastard. That’s a heavy title to be holding—”

  “What?”

  “Goodnight, Will,” the Gravedigger said, not facing him. “Thank you for all your help tonight. Help me finish up Brinton tomorrow?”

  “Dad?”

  “Hmm?”

  The Gravedigger waited a moment. Very slowly, he sat up. Every part of him hurt. He wondered if that’s what it was like for the dead; an absolute state of absolute agony.

  “Hmm?” He turned to face the front of the barn, and then he felt a hurt unlike any he’d ever felt before.

  Because there was Will, holding his stomach, desperately trying to stop all the blood from coming out of it.

  CHAPTER V

  The Gravedigger and Clementine caught Will before he hit the ground. Pulling up his shirt, they saw his stomach had been stabbed.

  “Stop, stop,” Will said, pushing his parents’ hands away while they tried to apply pressure to the wound. Blood streamed down his pants and dribbled onto his feet.

  Clementine grabbed her son’s wrists and held them away. The Gravedigger ran into the annex and returned with a bandage coated in Null and disinfectant. He fastened it to Will’s stomach, and pressed down hard. He took the boy’s kicks as he lashed out in pain.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Clementine said, brushing his hair and holding him back. “It’s not deep, is it, Atticus?”

  “It’s not.” The Gravedigger wasn’t a squeamish man, but having his son’s blood on his hands made him one. “Who did this? Will? Will?” The Gravedigger took his chin. “Will, you’ll be okay. I swear it. But who did this?”

  Clementine nodded at her husband. When his hand left Will’s stomach, hers replaced it. With enough hate in his heart to fill the graveyard again, he grabbed a machete and scythe, and went like Death into the dark.

  Where had Gary gone? For a brief and betraying moment, the Gravedigger thought the ghoul may be responsible for this. But he knew that wasn’t true. His eyes darted back and forth between the church, the graveyard, and the house. Night was more than a period of time. It had a texture to it, as though all it touched were covered in grain. He didn’t have much light, but the Gravedigger knew someone was out there. He could feel them moving through the night, breaking it up, leaving gaps in the grain from where they’d been.

  Blythe and Bon, the soldiers from Eldrus; they were responsible for this. Mr. Haemo had been right, but somehow, the Gravedigger had overlooked them. It had to do with the vermillion veins, he was sure of it. Too many strange coincidences had come together too quickly to suggest otherwise.

  The grass crunched beneath the Gravedigger’s feet as he ran towards the house. His brain felt too large for his skull. Ruminations filled it on how he could kill the men. Because they were soldiers of Eldrus, they were granted some unspoken protections in the Heartland. But that didn’t matter much to the Gravedigger. It’s not as though anyone would be able to prove he’d done anything, anyway. When he’d finished with them, there’d be nothing left but what could be wrung out of their shredded clothes.

  By the time his foot found the porch, he knew he’d made a mistake. He heard a rustling first. Then, when he turned around, he saw Blythe and Bon rush out of the graveyard, their drawn swords grinning in the moonlight. A third figure followed—Gary. But when the ghoul passed the last headstone, he hit the ground and fell into the fog there.

  “Atticus!” Clementine screamed.

  The Gravedigger tore through the dark. Another scream, a howl, broke across the dead land. But it hadn’t been a woman’s, and it hadn’t been Will’s.

  The Gravedigger crashed into the barn, rounded the corner, and went, weapons readied, into it. Bon was bent over, holding onto the stump where his right hand should’ve been. He gagged as the fountain of arterial spray doused his lips.

  “Atticus, don’t move,” Clementine said, still standing beside Will, the machete she gripped slick with the soldier’s blood.

  The Gravedigger said, “Where’s—?”

  Clementine shook her head as Blythe stood up and stepped out from behind her. A blood-soaked
rope dangled past his legs. It was attached to the pointed blade, a kunai, he held.

  Blythe bared his teeth as he pushed the tip into Clementine’s side, stopping only when he broke the skin.

  “Get in there and fix yourself up,” Blythe said to Bon, nodding at the annex. “Gravedigger, drop your weapons. Gravedigger’s wife, you ought to do the same.”

  Will moaned on the floor. The bandage on his belly was holding tight. The Gravedigger did as he was told, his wife the same. If not for their son, they may have done differently, but there he was, bleeding on the ground, reminding them of the value of restraint.

  “This thing?” Blythe said, admiring the kunai. “Got it from some asshole named Ronny down the road. Never seen one before. He said it was from the Old World. Didn’t think it would work, but…” Blythe focused on Will’s stomach. “Cuts right through the air. Guess I have a better aim than I give myself credit for. Bon, you all right in there?”

  Bon stumbled out of the annex, stump wrapped tight, mouth stained with whatever painkillers and mind-breakers he’d gotten into. “What… what are…?” He doubled over and fell on his ass. “This isn’t supposed to hurt. He promised.”

  Blythe kicked the back of Clementine’s legs. Crying out, she dropped to her knees.

  “It’ll hurt, but you’ll get it back.” Blythe sighed and took Clementine’s hair in his hand. “It’s Atticus, right? Atticus, listen, I know this isn’t your fault. Get your boy, your wife, and let’s go inside and talk this out. We could kill you. We could have killed you. I didn’t cut young Will here and run for no reason. I’m sorry it happened like this. It’s not your fault, but nevertheless, let’s try to salvage this situation, okay?”

  The Gravedigger had never been so powerless in his entire life. He felt as though he were standing beside himself, above himself—a ghost haunting his own useless body. Seeing his son lying there, whimpering, shivering, and his wife kneeling there, Blythe tugging on her hair, it made him so sick with rage he would gladly follow the men into death just to have the chance kill them again.