by Scott Hale
Sensing this, Mr. Haemo puts his arm around the ghoul and, patting him, says, “There, there. There, there.”
“It’s beautiful,” the ghoul says, touching the glass; wanting nothing more than to be enveloped in the light.
“Beautiful only on the outside,” Mr. Haemo says.
Another tremor shakes Six Pillars. The chandeliers of light bend forwards, towards the center where Lillian still stands. The tips of the white stalks seem to be pointing towards the silver necklace, as if drawn to its pulsating light.
The jellyfish-like chandeliers rip free of the corpses and the followers. On an otherworldly current, they slash violently through the neighborhood towards Lillian. Once they reach her, they shrink and tighten. Each chandelier wraps around the other, forming an intricate weave over Lillian that almost looks like fabric.
When the final strand of light wraps itself around Lillian, she looks like nothing more than a mummy. But then the light from the necklace, which is underneath hundreds of layers of this ethereal, organic material, breaks across the fabric.
Where it goes, features follow. Arms and legs are given definition and flesh tones; feet and hands are next, and then fingers and toes, flexing. A torso is shaped, and breasts are chiseled into it. A long, slender neck is formed like a funnel.
But where there should be a head, there is nothing. The light cannot form it. Instead, the wraps of light tear from their places on Lillian’s body and rush to that stump. The worming appendages take on millions of shapes as they build a brain and bones, fat and flesh, until what remains is the head and face of a young, somewhat sad woman.
The remaining wraps, which the ghoul now identifies as white worms, pour off her neck and face like rain, and cover her naked body in white pants and a white tunic.
She stares at the dead around her, sighs, and sets off into the world.
The ghoul and Mr. Haemo watch the White Worm for as long as they can.
And when they no longer can, the ghoul says, “What the fuck just happened?”
“Something special,” Mr. Haemo says.
“Are you going to kill her?”
“No. She’s going to make this land so rich with blood, I’m going to need a dentist when she’s through.”
The ghoul hesitates: “She’s going to take over the Lillians.”
“Yep.”
“I could kill her and impersonate her.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think your stomach would find her kind all that agreeable. Besides, I brought you here to kill something else.”
The ghoul furrows his brow. “Who?”
“Them.”
Mr. Haemo points out the window, to the five Night Terrors working their way through the neighborhood to the summoning spot.
“She killed her enemies.”
Mr. Haemo curls his proboscis inwards. “You think all those dead people are her enemies? Those are martyrs, baby.”
“Why didn’t they attack her?”
“They’re Night Terrors,” Mr. Haemo says. “When you’re the one running the scales, you get to say what’s balanced or not.”
“You want their blood.”
“Can’t get it myself,” Mr. Haemo says with anger. “Something wrong with it. I do want their blood, but I want something else’s blood even more. You’re going to help me get it.”
The ghoul’s stomach turned. “Who’s blood?”
“A homunculi’s.”
7
The Night Terrors move like the beasts they embody. The Boar hurries along Lillian’s house in short bursts, constantly scanning his surroundings for prey and predators. The Monkey leaps over the porch’s railing, holding his spear limply, and slips inside the house. The Lion goes wide, forming a perimeter around the corpses before he settles in the grass, knives at the ready. The Vulture coasts the scene sluggishly, picking at the bodies with her sword, and then perches herself atop a severed telephone pole.
But it’s the last Night Terror to arrive that truly moves the ghoul from fearful fascination to abject horror. The Ram, with her bleached skull and massive, twisted horns, sprints towards the ghoul and Mr. Haemo’s hiding place with vacant determination. Her furs, bleached black with years of dried blood, cling to her body as if they’d grown into it. She wields a single halberd under whose blade four children’s skulls have been fixed. There are still bits of muscle and flesh on their bones.
The ghoul stumbles away from the window. Tripping over his legs, he slams into the ground, busting his knee.
Mr. Haemo mumbles, “Shit,” and backpedals. He steps over the ghoul, grabs his arm, and drags him out of the living room, down the hall, and into the kitchen.
The front door is kicked open. The Ram’s feet are like hooves against the hardwood floor. There is a musicality to their demonic claps.
The ghoul, bracing himself against Mr. Haemo, stands in the kitchen. His breaths are heavy, so he stops breathing altogether. His hands are shaking, so he makes them fists and presses them to his mouth. He raids the closet in his mind and puts on every suit he sees, rapidly changing between the men, women, and children he’s eaten over the years.
More sound from the front of the house. The Ram starts for the living room, stops. The ghoul hears her hit the halberd hard into the ground. The tiny skulls on it clatter like a baby’s rattle.
Mr. Haemo nudges the ghoul. He points to the door that lets out to the backyard. Ducking down, the seven foot mosquito makes for the exit when—
The Ram hoofs it through living room, down the hall, and comes to a dead stop in the kitchen, inches away from the ghoul.
He sinks his teeth into the tops of his fists. His eyes meet the Ram’s. Hers are massive inside the skull, and tattooed around her already dark irises are the halves of black rectangles.
Mr. Haemo straightens up like a thief caught in the act and steps behind the ghoul. “Well,” he says, “it’s now or never.”
Mr. Haemo shoves the ghoul at the Ram.
Shocked, the Ram slams the halberd, handle first, into the ghoul.
But the ghoul keeps going. It takes the blow, takes the handle in both hands, and kicks both legs forward, sinking his feet into the Ram’s stomach. She gasps, lets go of the halberd, and flies backwards.
The ghoul hits the ground, hip first. A sharp, solid pain, like a block of ice, runs through his body. He tips his head back, cries at Mr. Haemo, “Help, goddamn it!”
But Mr. Haemo only nods forward.
The Ram, wheezing, rises to her feet. She runs headfirst, horns out.
The ghoul gets to his knees. She barrels into him, driving the horns through both shoulders. They slide, her on top of him, back into the kitchen, bashing against the rusted oven.
“Fuck!” the ghoul screams.
Mr. Haemo, now sitting at the table, drooling blood into a dirty coffee mug, says, “Quiet, you’re going to wake the neighborhood.”
The Ram rears back, ripping the horns out of the ghoul’s shoulders. Chunks of his terse flesh fling through the air and smack against the walls. She punches him in the face, each hit sending his head into the oven.
The ghoul’s vision blurs. The kitchen fades. His face feels like clay in this unmaker’s hands. He grabs her wrists, but she swats him away, and keeps pummeling. He’ll be dead soon, he knows, and so he goes to his mind to find a suit befitting his funeral.
No pressure. No pain. A cool wind kisses his cheeks, dousing the bloody fires raging across them. He opens one eye; the other is swollen shut.
The Ram is staring at him. Her eyes, once so alien with their horizontal slits, are wet and worried. Blood and skin slip off her fingers as her fists unravel
The ghoul glances at his flesh. He’s become someone else. Mind like mush, he can’t remember who he has chosen. Is the Night Terror surprised by his ability? Or does she recognize him? A ghoul’s body is a graveyard. What spirit has he unearthed, and what does it say to her now?
The ghoul hears voices outside the house. Her companion
s have come to investigate.
The Ram’s eyes tighten. The spell is broken.
But before she can act, the ghoul lunges forward, knocking the skull from her head. A face underneath, just as human as any so-called Corrupted’s greets him. He pins her to the ground. He clamps his jaws around her throat and rips out a dripping strip of skin and muscle and quickly gulps it down.
The Ram tries to apply pressure to the wound, but her hands can’t get around his face, which is now buried deep in her esophagus. He chews on her cartilage like jerky, and tongues her larynx. With his fingers, he widens the wound and then goes to work on the bones, prying them open like stubborn oysters.
The backdoor slams open. The ghoul, with a mouthful of Night Terror, whips around and finds the Monkey standing there, gasping.
The front door cracks back. The Boar and the Lion stumble into the hall outside the kitchen, while the Vulture drifts back towards the second hallway on the kitchen’s opposite end.
Mr. Haemo takes one last, loud, obnoxious sip from the coffee cup and shifts in his seat, seeing each Night Terror that surrounds them.
The ghoul slurps up the Ram’s blood. Hunger and hate subside to the gnawing reminder of his own mortality.
Seeing the panicked look on his face, Mr. Haemo waves his hand. “Finish eating, ghoul,” he says, coming to his feet. “There are starving kids in Africa who would love to have a meal like that.”
The Monkey jabs his spear forward.
Mr. Haemo flings the coffee cup at his mask. It shatters on the skull. The Monkey recoils, the shards protruding from his eyes.
The Lion and the Boar bear down on the ghoul. Reaching the end of the hallway, ready to impale him where he lies feasting upon their friend, Mr. Haemo conjures a cloud of mosquitoes and floods their masks with the winged demons.
They scream, go sideways. They paw at the wall, but their hands slip on the ghoul’s shoulder meat pasted there.
The Vulture hurries down the opposite hall, sword at her side, her forearms bulging. She runs into the kitchen, slashes diagonally. Mr. Haemo turns sideways, swings around, one wing out. The wing cuts through the skull as if it were paper, severing the beak… and the Night Terror’s jaw.
The Vulture drops her sword. Her tongue lolls over the gushing cavity. Screaming, she turns to run, but Mr. Haemo is faster. He grabs her by the tongue, rips it out of her mouth, and smashes what’s left of her head against the side of the table, killing her instantly.
The ghoul scoots away from the Lion and the Boar. Mr. Haemo shakes his head, tells him to stay, and steps over him. He grabs the two Night Terrors swarmed by his children and hurls them down the hall, one after the other.
The Boar bashes against the wall, while the Lion goes headfirst into a linen closet.
Mr. Haemo snaps his fingers and the mosquitoes disappear. He crouches down beside the disorientated Boar, dusts off his chest piece.
“Please,” the Boar says.
Mr. Haemo tips back his head and laughs. “A flesh fiend begging for mercy? If you ask me—” he lowers his head and faces the Boar, “—evolution did you no favors.” And stabs his proboscis through the Night Terror’s chest, straight into his heart.
Mr. Haemo takes a long sip of the Boar’s blood, and then retches. “Trash,” he says, vomiting. “Trash blood.”
Out of the linen closet, the Lion stumbles.
Mr. Haemo, still crouched, still vomiting, raises his claw at the Lion and makes a fist.
The Lion screams a scream unlike any the ghoul has ever heard before. A scream of such immense, unfathomable pain that it makes him cry and cover his ears.
The Lion flies forward, as if pulled by some invisible force. Halfway to Mr. Haemo, the Night Terror’s vein and arterial systems rip through his flesh, complete and still functioning. The Lion stops, collapses to the ground.
The veins and arteries fold into a ball and glide into Mr. Haemo’s hand. He crushes them and then comes to his feet. With the remnants in his palms, he tips his other fingers into the blood and begins to paint the walls.
“If you had any doubts that this was going to end well for you,” Mr. Haemo says, creating in blood the crude image of a mosquito, “well, sorry, I’m not sorry.”
He stops, smears what’s left of the Lion’s veins and arteries all over the Boar’s face.
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to kill you, though,” Mr. Haemo says, cheerfully.
The ghoul stares down at the Ram. There’s still so much to go. He sinks his fingers into the wet folds of her neck and starts to undress her, flesh first.
“Get the homunculus’ blood, and I’ll teach you to hear the blood, make pacts with the flesh.”
The ghoul stares at him. “If I possess a life, I’ll still be what I am.”
“Will you?” Mr. Haemo cleans off his proboscis. “Is that what you want?”
The ghoul thinks back to the suits in his mind and says, “Apparently not.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“What’s a homunculus?”
Mr. Haemo shakes his head, picks up the ram skull, and says, “Don’t talk with your mouth full. Make sure you clean your plate. We need to be in Brooksville by nightfall. I’ve got a date with a Maggot.”
6
On a stomach filled with one drifter, one wife, two daughters, and a Night Terror, the ghoul is grateful for Mr. Haemo’s silence. In his gluttony, he’s become much like the mosquito. Covered in blood and swollen, his stomach sloshes when he walks. He moves like a drunkard, and drips with the sweat of his sins. Yet, he is confident in a way he hasn’t been since his awakening. In a comfort food coma, he drifts, untouchable. He has never killed a thing unless it was necessary, and now that he’s seen that he can, he feels like the father he was, and the father he should have been: The quiet protector his children could look up to, and whose wife couldn’t take her eyes off of. But no matter how much he does for them, no matter how much he changes for them, they’ll still be dead.
He forgets this, sometimes. He’s been through this before. When one of his best friends had died, he found himself picking up his phone to text them months, even years after the funeral, wanting to check-in. He knew his friend was dead, but in that brief moment of forgetfulness, his friend was not. That moment, it was neither good, nor bad. He’s imagined this must be the closest one can get to going back in time. If you lie yourself into a life that once was, forever can it be.
Six Pillars bleeds into Bitter Springs, but there isn’t much differentiation between the two. It is hard going across the raped earth. The bruised ground sinks beneath their feet, while the scabby stretches of parasite-infested stones stick in their toes. Stretched chasms gasp words of warning, and they heed and steer clear. Stinking puddles of stagnated water reek of rot, and they go the long way around them, careful to avoid the gelatinous bottom-feeders feeding within. Tumbledown buildings moan within their vermillion constrictions—towers of rubble, they threaten to topple; and distant tents, white and Lillian branded, show their emptiness to the wind, the bitterness of ritual all around them, like static before a storm.
They reach the debris-dammed riverbed of what once was the Tri-County River. Without water, it’s hardly recognizable. It betrays the ghoul’s memories in the way these ravaged vistas do not. He has no personal attachment to the river, but it was the binding between the cities; their lifeblood, their contaminant. That’s how he knew he was still human: he got stupid with sentiments, sometimes. But if water ran these banks again, would the river be the same? Like a word forgotten for an object later rediscovered, would there be a difference?
Wild dogs and stray cats roam the riverbank, but to the giant mosquito they are no equals. They scatter.
Overhead, a Lord beast clears the river in one leap. The ghoul can’t make sense of the creature or its kind. A moon cat, likely, given its dark fur and celestial markings. Five-to-six-hundred pounds of muscle and claws like knives. And it’s running. From Night Terrors most likely. The ghoul�
��s wife was the bleeding heart when came it to animals, but to him, this doesn’t seem fair. In this life, certain things, no matter what, can’t catch a break.
And hearing the soupy gore in his gut, the ghoul wants a break. He won’t get one the way he is. Today, he is a monster, and according to the Corrupted, responsible for the Trauma. Tomorrow, it will be no different. He’ll still be a monster, and a blight. He will bear humanity’s burdens like a pack mule, so that they won’t have to. And when he no longer can, they’ll butcher him and look for something else to blame. He could live among them, in disguise, but not truly. He would know the truth, and in turn, in time, they would, too.
He turns to Mr. Haemo. The bug pays him no mind. He still holds the ram skull closely. He already knows what’s going to be said. He’s known all along. The ghoul wants history. He wants to possess. He wants to forget, and he wants to remember. This chameleon gift of his is a weapon he’ll come to loathe. Surely, he thinks to himself, there is, was, or will be someone else out there in a similar situation as himself. A ruined man, maybe, wanting to get back to a family forlorn. He hopes never to meet them, though. They can never meet, men like that, like himself. They will see their paths diverged, and spend their lives reaching out to the other to justify the choices they’ve made.
Hours pass. The river narrows. Around the bend, two commercial airplanes are smashed into one another. Seats and buckles and oxygen masks spill out of the cabins like grubby guts. The bellies of the rusted fuselages have been split open. Fresh, frothing liquid rolls languidly over the tears. Inside, the ghoul hears pattering feet and the frantic search for weaponry. Shining eyes meet his from the ruin’s dark. It is difficult to tell whether they are human or not, but these days, it doesn’t matter. Trying to make the distinction is more dangerous than it’s worth.
For once, the sky is clear. Seasons are strange during the Trauma. Summer and winter are two hateful lovers wrestling over the specifics of an endless divorce. Mornings can be cold and distant, and afternoons, suffocating and hot. It isn’t until the evenings when all energies are spent and all battles lost that the temperature steadies out. But today is different. It has to be past noon, and the weather is decent. Only some parts of the land will catch fire.
