by Scott Hale
The leather armor irritated Atticus’ wounds. He tried to explain to them he didn’t much see the point in armor, but then Gary made a point himself that, even if Atticus couldn’t die, he wouldn’t be much use to anyone if he lost an arm or a leg. They still hurt, though, the wounds—still throbbed with gut-wrenching pain, but he was getting used to it. His father once told him a man could get used to anything given enough time. He’d always admired how philosophical his daddy got before the belt came out.
“Eat,” he heard Gary whisper behind him.
The fog was too dense to see him, but nevertheless, Atticus knew the ghoul was staring him down. He fumbled for the satchel at his side and slipped some bread into his mouth. If he was constantly coming back from the dead—a concept he wasn’t willing to even begin to process—then he needed to keep his body in working condition.
“When Clementine and Will come back,” Gary had said before they left, his voice shaking, his eyes elsewhere, “what do you want them to see? Take it from me, love isn’t that blinding.”
A shush shook Atticus from his thoughts. He leaned forward, hand tightening around the machete’s handle. Hex only had three swords, and Atticus passed his to James on account of being dead and all.
Another shush. A new set of hooves were clapping ahead. Neighing. Atticus strained his ears to overhear what was happening behind the river’s noises. Slowly, he cantered forward, machete out, hoping Gary behind him had the same idea.
The wind kicked up, caught his cloak and made it snap. Curtains of mist wavered back and forth across his path, wetting his face with its delicate fabric. He could make out two shapes now—Hex and James—and then two more ahead of them, tall and imposing.
“Stop,” one of the shapes boomed, the clink of steel the punctuation to his sentence.
Atticus took a few steps forward and stopped. Close enough to make out their armor and adornments, he saw that the shapes were soldiers of Eldrus.
Gary trotted up beside him and planted his horse in front of Atticus, as though to hide him.
“What is this?” the soldier with the loud voice asked. His face looked as though it’d been carved out of rock, or dipped in acid.
“Why can’t you all just listen?” the second soldier added. He held his sword like it were his dick—proud but without a clue as to how to use it. “Turn back—”
The ugly soldier raised his hand to interrupt. “Who’s this you have with you, Hex?” He squinted his bloodshot eyes. “That you, James? You’ve got sand, I’ll give you that. There’s a warrant out for your arrest, you know that, right? Plenty saw you there on the bridge.” The soldier paused, stretched his neck, and got pissed. “Who’s that behind you?”
A mosquito landed on Atticus’ wrist and had a nip. The machete felt light in his hand, but he put it away. It was too easy to become the thing he hunted. The last thing he needed or wanted was a trail of bodies by which those seeking revenge could find him.
“Just friends passing through,” Gary said.
I can’t keep having these delays. Ignoring the soldiers’ shouts to do otherwise, Atticus rode forward, between Hex and James, until he was within killing distance of the men.
He dropped his hood and said, “I expect you’re looking for me.”
The ugly soldier pulled his sword back. One swing and he’d hack Atticus’ head clean off. “Might be.” He took in for a moment the ruin that was Atticus’ neck. “Drop the weapon. Get off your horse. Jonathan,” he said to the other soldier, “grab that one back there.”
“No, you stay put.” Jonathan stopped Gary, who’d gone sideways, to hide his ghoulish face.
Atticus slid off his horse, machete back in hand.
“Drop it,” the ugly soldier barked. He put himself into a stance the royal must’ve found fancy. The fog rolled past, unimpressed.
“Bruce, what’s the word around the campfire?” Hex turned, and crossed her legs. All that black armor on her made her look like a bug.
“Don’t you start,” the ugly soldier, Bruce, said.
“That he’s dead, right? Killed Bon and died elsewhere.”
Bruce’s mouth hung open; a mosquito buzzed by it. “Someone helped him off that bridge. A woman. Too dark to tell who.”
“I’m guessing I don’t need to spell it out for you.” She dropped off the horse. Her feet hit the ground hard, mud exploding out from under them. “I’ve done a lot for you. Hey, Jonathan,” she said, noticing he’d been shuffling closer to Atticus. “This man burned Bon’s face to the bone. You think he gives two shits about you? Let’s rethink this, boys.”
Bruce furrowed his eyebrows. His face stayed like that a bit, as though it were putty. “Not going to happen. I can’t do that.”
“You saying him killing Bon wasn’t, in some way, a favor to you?” Hex fiddled with the sheathed sword at her side. “Favor to your wife, I imagine. Didn’t he beat her bad? Didn’t I patch her up?”
Bruce growled, raised his hand as though to hit her.
“Jonathan, you know James here,” Hex carried on.
James smirked. “Boohooed in my arms one night after Bon went to work on him. What’d you do with that dress Hex made you? What’d you do with all that time I bought you?” He sounded tough, sounded the way Atticus had always intended for him to be.
Hex sighed. Before anyone could react, she drew her sword and stuck it to Bruce’s gut.
“‘Gravedigger’ is dead, or just about, to most. Bon was a matter of revenge. Bedlam just took it the wrong way. You bring him in, you’re just going to make everything worse. Let this go.”
Bruce bit his lip. Hex put some pressure on the sword, working the tip of it into his armor. “Dead or alive, it doesn’t matter which. We just need a body to show. I’ll forget this happened, Hex. I’m willing to.”
“No one knows we’re here.” James kept his eyes locked on Jonathan as he spoke. “We’re just passing through. We won’t be back. Let us leave before the next patrol comes. The fog’s going to clear soon.”
Jonathan’s lip trembled. With fire in his eyes, he stomped forward and ripped James off his horse. “Asshole!”
Mud splattered over James’ armor. The ground sucked him into place. He moaned and rubbed at his spine.
Jonathan stood over him. He raised his sword up, ready to drive it through James’ heart. “What’d you do to Elijah—”
Atticus barreled into Jonathan. The sword flew out of his hands and crashed into a pile of rocks.
Bruce tried to make a move, but Hex drew back and busted him in the mouth with her sword’s pommel.
Atticus punched Jonathan in the stomach. Lifting him a few inches off the ground, he threw him into the river. His screams came out garbled as the currents crashed into him, taking him further downstream.
“Stop, stop,” Bruce begged.
Atticus glanced over at Hex, who was straddling the soldier. Her hand’s Corruption glowed like an ember as she pressed it against his face.
“What’s it going to be, eh?” She leaned forward, blue braids like blue ropes touching his cheek. Her throat quivered, bulged slightly. “Take my house. I’ve others. You see that one there?” She nodded at Gary, who’d finally come to join in the fun.
Gary peeled back his hood, his ghastly visage made all the worse by the fog that passed in and out of it.
“He’s a ghoul,” she said. “And Gravedigger, there? Well, I don’t rightly know what he is, but he’s still kicking when anything else would be gathering flies. James’ exploits aren’t any mystery to you, and my stirrings, well, you know all about them. This is the company I keep. Does yours measure up?”
Bruce shook his head.
Contented, Hex leaned back. Her throat returned to normal as she let out a cough. “Then you better get on your feet, soldier, and fetch a towel for your friend. I don’t want him to catch a cold.”
An hour south of Bedlam, in the oldest part of the surrounding woods, Annaliese’s Deceit cuts through. Seldom traveled, th
e forgotten trail stretches from the church of Cathedra to the roaring cataracts near the Nameless Forest. Smugglers once used the path as a means by which they could trade their goods to the towns and villages along the way. But when the trail started eating the smugglers, the criminals of the Heartland turned to more obvious but less murderous routes to pitch their pilfered wares.
After Atticus and his companions cleared Bedlam, that’s where they found themselves, each in quiet awe of one another’s capabilities.
“This is the quickest route to Cathedra?” Atticus asked. He still had his machete, and now Jonathan’s sword as well.
They’d been on the trail for fifteen minutes. Already, he felt cut off from the world. It seemed segregated from the rest of the woods, as though it’d been pushed out, like a splinter from a cut.
“Don’t know much about it,” he added.
“No,” Hex grunted. Her horse struggled with the uneven terrain. “But no one’ll see us coming. And it runs right behind Carpenter Plantation.”
Gary coughed until he had everyone’s attention. He said quietly, “Know anywhere a guy can get a bite to eat?”
Atticus noticed how disgusted James looked when the ghoul had said that; cannibalism had never sat well with the boy.
“There’s an old graveyard a few hours in. Bet we can find something there for you to munch on,” Hex offered, not missing a beat.
“How long’s it been?” Atticus fell back and rode beside Gary.
“Since Bedlam. I think that’s part of the reason I haven’t been right.”
“Where’s Elijah?” Atticus threw the question out, to see how much James would fumble for an answer.
“Never… never… never came back to Bedlam,” he said, going red in the face. He took a drink of water. “Gave him up.”
“What’d you do to him?” Atticus saw the ever-steadfast Hex glance back. He didn’t like being out of the loop. When they made camp, he’d be sure to right that wrong. “That soldier, Jonathan, said you did something to him.”
With a burst of anger, James shouted, “I hit him.” He stopped his horse. He squeezed the reins until his knuckles went white. “I got tired of it. You were right. Been waiting for you to ask. I broke his nose. His hand and foot. Couldn’t take it. Sleeping around and… and the manipulation.” He rubbed his face. He’d have a few hives soon, be out for the whole night when he finally turned in. “I don’t want to talk about this right now, Atticus. I don’t want to get into this with you.”
“That’s fine,” he conceded. You don’t need to prove anything to me anymore, he thought, but didn’t say.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Hex said, “but these trees—” she pointed to a cluster of engorged oaks that had grown into one another, their bases twisted into petrified sneers, “—stay clear of them.”
Atticus smashed a mosquito sucking on his neck. “Why’s that?”
“They’ll eat you,” she said, her grin almost as large the one on the grotesque growth. “As old as they are, these Adelaide, they’re surprisingly spry.”
A few hours in, just as Hex had promised, they came upon a graveyard that had been built twenty or so feet off of Annaliese’s Deceit. Only a few headstones remained there. Ten to fifteen carnivorous Adelaides sat around the perimeter as well, doing their best to look as maniacal as possible as the group settled in.
“He’s different,” Atticus said to Gary. He watched Hex and James from the far end of the graveyard. “She is, too, in her own way.”
The ghoul grunted. He paced back and forth, stopping sometimes to sniff the air and sample the soil.
“How long have you had the hunger?”
Gary shrugged and settled on an unmarked mound. “Since the snake, actually.” He looked at the sun, and sighed; deeds such as these were often done in the dark.
“You put us at risk.”
“No, I would never. I wouldn’t do that.” Gary’s glassy eyes went wide. He couldn’t cry anymore, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t. “I didn’t want to take away from what you had to do.”
Gary clawed through the topsoil. Dirt and grass flew every-which-way. His tough ghoul flesh flexed and tightened, taking on the earth’s various tones. How many graves had he gone through over the years? Atticus wondered. And would he ever stop to lie down in one of his own? He himself could stop, Atticus thought, but what would happen if he did? Once he found Clementine and Will, would he even have the chance to speak to them? Hold them? Or would that be when Death finally arrived, to collect what was owed? Atticus considered what would happen to him if he were to leave them to the Membrane, to spare them their painful rebirth. He considered this, and then scratched his head until it bled.
“Shallow, and fresh,” Gary said. He was four feet into the ground when his nails caught on a coffin. “Someone’s still kicking around in these woods.” He cracked the front of the coffin and said, “Oh, shit.”
Atticus furrowed his brow at the ghoul. He leaned over the grave. The coffin inside was already covered in the Adelaide’s roots. “What?”
Gary pulled back on the cracked wood until it snapped off. Inside the coffin, a little girl lay, her hair turned gray from the cobwebs spun across it. She wore a woman’s dress, her mother’s maybe, and held a bundle of rosy Peace against her chest. She couldn’t have been dead more than a week.
Gary turned her over, where he found the little girl’s broken spine jutting out against her dress. “I don’t want to do this,” he said. “It’s disrespectful.”
“There has to be someone else.” Atticus eyed the graveyard and knew by the state of things there probably wasn’t.
“Nothing I can get anything out of.” Gary touched her cheek. “Every meal is a murder, you know.”
Atticus wiped his eyes. The little girl reminded him of Clementine and the time they spent together the first summer after they met, rough-housing.
“You know, I know, that she could come back. Everyone I eat I take that away from.” He shooed away the spider who’d webbed up her hair. “Her dad might be out there now, gathering up ingredients.”
“I don’t think so, Gary. Bringing someone back is a selfish thing. You see to it they’re laid to rest for good. I need you with me. And I imagine her dad, whatever his plans may be, only wants the best for her. I don’t think having another go at this world is that.”
Gary fell back on his heels and placed his trembling hands atop his thighs. “That makes you a hypocrite.”
“I know.”
“What if… what if Clem-Clementine and Will… what if you find them but it’s too late? And we can’t… do another ritual?”
Was it sadness that caused his friend to stutter when mentioning his family? It seemed closer to guilt than grief, but now wasn’t the time to ask, so Atticus said, “I have to try. No one’s going to do it for me.”
Gary nodded and leaned into the grave. He put both hands on the little girl and lifted her out of the coffin. Like a doll, he laid her on the ground carefully.
“When’s the last time you ate a child?” Atticus asked, gripping Gary’s shoulder.
“Long before I met you.” Gary slid off her dress and placed it back in the coffin. “I don’t want to stain it. Meant something to someone.”
“I know.” He squeezed his shoulder, patted his back. “I imagine you’ve seen all manner of awful things.”
Gary wiped his salivating mouth. He picked up the little girl’s pale arm. The faint hairs that ran along it glowed golden in the afternoon light. “Everything ends for a reason. Things aren’t meant to go past their expiration.” He pressed her flesh to his lips. “I’d turn away.”
Atticus shook his head as the ghoul’s teeth came out. “I don’t think I will.”
It took about twenty minutes until the little girl was gone. Gary placed her bones back in the grave, buried the coffin, and used what little dirt was left over to cover up the mess he’d made. The ghoul looked better than before, more like his usual self. But now tha
t Atticus thought about it, there appeared to be more to his starvation than a lack of opportunity to feast. It almost seemed like penance.
Two mosquitoes buzzed past Atticus and Gary as they walked to the center of the graveyard. Hex and James were small figures in the distance, coming off the Deceit.
“How you like being dead?” Gary asked, throwing his hood over his head.
“Haven’t had time to think about it. Not sure I want to.”
They reached the horses, which were tethered to the only tree that appeared as though it wouldn’t gobble them up. Atticus gave the horses some of their own food; otherwise, they weren’t likely to eat.
“It’s like I’m getting chance after chance after chance. Like I’m rebounding from the Membrane.” He showed his neck and the three arrow-holes. “They’re healing. Slowly, but still. I got to thinking on the way here. Do I need all this? If someone cuts my heart out, will I keep coming back. What’s the thing that truly fuels this mess of flesh, you know what I mean?” He paused a moment. “No, I don’t want to think about it, being dead. Or not dead. That’s when complications will set in. When I’ll inherit my legacy of decrepitude.”
“I can respect that.” Gary took out his sword, gave it a slow swing. “Haven’t had to use one of these in a while.”
“You never died, that right?”
Gary aimed the sword at the nearest Adelaide, as though he meant to spar with it. “Like I said a million times before, ghoulism is different. It’s a disease.”
“Came from… what’d you say his name was? David? Dandy Dumbass? No, what? Deacon, right?”
Gary laughed and sheathed the sword. “Yeah, Deacon Wake. Dandy Dumbass was his brother.” He snorted. “I’m thinking about him, too. He went to the Membrane. But he didn’t die. Somehow, he found a way in. That’s how he contracted the disease.”
“The shepherds get out somehow. Makes sense.” Atticus swallowed hard. For a moment, he’d forgotten he was hunted.
“That thing is out there, Atticus. We’re not going to let it get to you.”
