by Devon Taylor
He forced his attention toward the little room again, glad now that he had opted not to traverse the deadly ocean, and pushed the monster from his thoughts (as much as he could, anyway).
There was a little sink and mirror near the door, a narrow closet (for what, he didn’t know—he hadn’t brought anything with him), a couple of shelves by the window, and a solitary bunk with a neatly folded blanket and pillow waiting to be used, all dimly lit by a single light in the center of the ceiling.
The empty closet reminded Rhett of something. He slipped a hand into his jeans pocket and dug around. He was looking for his phone, but it wasn’t there. A lot of good it would have done him anyway. There couldn’t possibly be any decent cell reception in the afterlife. He thought there might have been a picture of his parents on there somewhere, though. Maybe that’s what he’d really been looking for.
He stood at the sink, looking into the tiny mirror. He appeared the same, as far as he could tell—his dark hair darting out in all directions, his brown eyes. It was all there. And yet he could tell that it wasn’t really him. It was a projection, a suspect sketch of who he used to be. Close … but not quite right.
Clear, cold water came out of the faucet when he turned it on. He cupped his hands under it, telling his fingers to feel the numbing power of the water as it trickled over them. He splashed some on his face and sent the same signals there. He shivered, and it almost felt like he hadn’t forced himself to do so.
When he turned off the faucet, he could still hear water dripping, a lot of it, as if something had sprung a leak somewhere. Actually, it sounded as if the water was splashing onto the floor right behind him. He turned around, expecting to see a puddle on the floor and some sort of burst pipe above his head …
But there was nothing there, and the sound of dripping water had faded. He shook his head. It was probably just the sink draining.
When he lay down on the bunk, he was just below the window and thankfully couldn’t see out into the uneasy shadows. There was no moon, no sun, nothing to judge the time by. Just that constantly roiling gray sky.
Eventually he willed his eyes to shut, willed his shouting mind to quiet down to a whisper, and willed his body to sleep.
FOUR
For a moment, just a fraction of the space between seconds, there was the car again, falling. His arms and legs stiff against the wheel, against the pedals, instinctively trying to find purchase, even as the sky and the earth kept switching places outside the windows. The cracked, blistered asphalt rushing up to pulverize him. The world was a concussion of noise: horns and cries and whispering machine parts.
And there was also …
… the ocean.
Rhett could hear it sloshing against the side of the ship in a hollow, metallic way, as if he were hearing it from the bottom of a tin can. Which, he supposed, he kind of was. The Harbinger was as big of a tin can as they came, one full of nonperishable souls.
He sat up in his bunk, steadying himself against the gentle wobble of the sea. There was no change in atmosphere; the room was still just as gloomy and depressing as it had been the night (day?) before. Outside, the turbulent cloud cover was as dreary as ever. Only now there was some scenery: another one of those craggy rock formations, like the one that Rhett and Basil had arrived on, this one a little less welcoming. It curled up out of the frothing ocean like a gnarled finger, tall and slender, layered in jagged outcroppings. It looked as if it were pointing the way.
But to where?
Somebody knocked on the door then, banging against it with what must have been their fist.
“Hey new guy!” A muffled voice from the other side, with a heavy New York accent. Theo. “You up?”
“Uh … yeah,” Rhett called. He stood and gave himself a once-over in the mirror. His reflection was the same as it had been the night before, except … He squinted at the mirror, making sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. His face and hair all seemed to be unmarred by his sleep, which he supposed was a tiny bit weird considering he had always been notorious for his bed head. But the really weird part was the fact that his clothes, the same jeans and plaid button-down shirt he’d been wearing, appeared to be a shade or two darker, as if they were losing their vibrancy.
He thought about the crew members he’d seen last night. All their clothing had been dark, too. Maybe it was some kind of effect of the atmosphere? Or of the ship itself?
“You comin’ or not, new guy? I ain’t got all day to wait for yous.” The words were impatient, but Theo’s tone sounded playful.
“Coming,” Rhett said. His eyes lingered on the new hue of his outfit for just a second longer.
A few minutes later, Rhett and Theo were back at the mess hall. Theo had sauntered there beside Rhett without saying a single word. Rhett noticed Theo’s clothes were the same as the day before: a dark T-shirt and slacks held up by suspenders. His black shoes were polished so that when Rhett looked down at them, he saw a narrow reflection of himself looking back up. All Theo was missing was a fedora. Then his Untouchables vibe would be complete.
The mess hall was crowded with people. It was a sea of dark clothing, the chatter among the crew like the shushing of the tide.
Across the room, Basil, Treeny, and Mak were sitting together. Rhett was surprised to see Mak and felt like he was back at high school, nervous now because he had somehow been lumped together with the cool kids. He got some food and headed their way.
As he wormed around the tables, leaving Theo to debate his breakfast options, he noticed Basil and Mak with their heads together, talking in that conspiratorial way that almost ensures someone is talking about you. When Rhett approached the table, the pair sat up as casually as they could, but Rhett had seen enough.
“Good morning, chap!” Basil said, smacking Rhett on the shoulder as he sat down.
Rhett nearly dropped his tray. “Morning,” he grumbled.
“Not much of a morning person, are you?”
“Not exactly.”
Rhett started eating, allowing his taste buds to open up and enjoy the flavors again. He looked up and realized Treeny was sitting right across from him, staring. There was no tablet today, just her freckle-spotted hands folded neatly in front of her.
“Good morning,” she said, and her voice was so clear and so sweet, even in the din of the hall, that Rhett did a double take. She had only said a few words to him the night before, and it had not been part of a pleasant conversation.
“Good … morning,” he said around a mouthful of scrambled eggs.
In the meantime, Theo had lumbered over with two trays and squeezed himself into a chair.
“Looks like the whole team’s here,” Basil said with a grin. Mak shot him a nasty look.
“The … whole team?” Rhett asked. He was eyeing Mak with a mixture of contempt and nervousness. “Including me?”
“Well of course!” Basil leaned in. “The captain thought it would be a good idea. Seeing as we’re all young and adventurous and … well, stubborn.”
Rhett hadn’t taken his eyes off Mak, who was staring intently at the mediocre lump of oatmeal on her plate, obviously trying to avoid the conversation.
“So,” Basil went on, “any ideas for team names?”
Rhett waited to see if he was serious. But when nobody started throwing out options, Basil’s cheer deflated.
“No offense,” Rhett murmured, “but you guys don’t … seem like much of a team.”
Mak slammed both of her fists onto the table, sending a geyser of Theo’s eggs and potatoes shooting into the air. Theo shot her an annoyed look, and she rolled her eyes at him before glaring at Rhett.
“Listen,” she hissed. “I don’t approve of any of this. Got it? I’m supposed to be leading this team, and I got overruled. As far as I’m concerned, you can park your ass down in the engine room and shovel coal for the rest of eternity. If not, then this is your one and only warning—you get in my way, and I’ll make sure you become someone
else’s problem.”
For a split second, at the beginning of Mak’s tirade, Rhett almost panicked. He caught himself, though. Captain Trier was right—this was a second chance. To be the person he knew he truly was.
He sat up straight, leveled his eyes at Mak as she threatened to cast him out, and raised his eyebrows. When she was done, he said, “Anything else? Any other disclaimers you’d like to share? Because I guess I missed the one warning me about your bad attitude.”
Mak’s face grew dark, her lips pursing together until they were a thin pale line. Rhett thought she might lunge across the table and literally attack him. He tensed himself for a physical fight, which was something he was sure he would lose, especially to her.
But Mak just stood and stomped out of the hall, leaving behind her tray and the mess of exploded eggs, which Theo had started eating off the table anyway. There was a strange, intense beauty to Mak, especially when she was angry. Rhett couldn’t help but notice it. And he was at least a little sorry. He hadn’t intended to be dropped into her lap, to be forced onto her team, and to disrupt whatever dynamic they already had.
He mostly felt good, though. It had been a while since he’d had the courage to stand up for himself like that.
“Oh-ho-ho, that was unwise, mate,” Basil said. But he was laughing.
“Sorry,” Rhett mumbled. “She’s just…”
“Strong-willed?” It was Treeny, offering up a better word than any of the ill-fated alternatives that Rhett could have used.
“Yeah,” he said. “Something like that. Am I still too new to ask what that’s all about? I don’t think I did anything wrong. Did I?” He looked around at the other three, searching their faces. But they all just looked down at their food in stiff, weighted silence. Even Theo, who had practically been gorging himself, quit shoving food in his mouth and swallowed hard.
There was an uncomfortable moment when it seemed like the quiet would just keep spinning out like that forever. And then Basil finally spoke up.
“Mak has a certain … aversion to new teammates,” he said, poking at a syrup-logged pancake and looking genuinely unsettled. “It’s been just the four of us for a long time now.”
Basil stopped there, but the implication was clear.
“But it hasn’t always been just the four of you,” Rhett said. It wasn’t a question. He looked over at Treeny, who was staring at her hands, scratching at the quicks of her fingernails. Her eyes were wide and fearful and pained.
“No,” Basil replied.
Treeny squeezed her eyes shut, and Rhett decided that was enough prodding for one breakfast.
The four of them went back to eating. The mess hall began to clear, with groups of people—teams of syllektors—abandoning their tables and heading back out into the Column. There was a team breaking down the buffet, removing the still-steaming pans of food and switching off the heat lamps. Rhett wasn’t sure if he wanted to know where the food came from or where it went. He wasn’t sure it mattered much, though—it tasted wonderful.
Another few minutes passed and then Treeny’s head perked up, cocked to one side, as if she were listening for something. Rhett took a bite, chewing slowly, wondering what was up. Then Theo stopped with a fork that had impaled a sausage link halfway to his mouth. Basil leaned back, scratching his chin and looking around. He looked like he was waiting for something.
Treeny, in a tiny, heartbreaking voice, said, “Someone’s dying.”
Rhett nearly choked on his last bite of breakfast.
“What?” he said, except it sounded more like wad with the pancake lodged in the back of his throat. He swallowed. “Now?”
“Yeah,” Basil said. “Happens all the time. Didn’t we go over the job description last night? All those other teams that took off out of here? Where do you think they were going? Death is a full-time job, mate.”
He and Theo and Treeny stood and waited for Rhett.
“I’m going with you?” he asked.
Basil looked around. “Uh … obviously. You just braved the raging tempest over the fact that you’re now a part of our team, remember? Are you sure you don’t have some sort of memory … thing?”
“I just thought there’d be some kind of … I don’t know … training or something,” Rhett said.
Basil laughed, and Rhett had a flashback to the night before. Laughing was Basil’s standard response to what he must have thought were stupid questions.
“Not for this, there won’t be,” Basil said. “Collecting souls is something you have to learn firsthand. Let’s go.”
* * *
They led him up the stairs to a new level of the Column, where there was a glass wall with a set of doors in the middle. Everything behind the wall was sleek and metallic and coated in light. Weapons. Blades and swords, armor, arrows, whips, shields, axes, knives, all hung on rows of metal shelving. It was like a department store for the zombie apocalypse. Rhett didn’t see any guns, but there was practically everything else.
“What is this?” Rhett asked breathlessly.
“The armory,” Basil said, and his tone was unusually serious. He turned to Treeny. “Where’s—”
But then she came storming down the steps, glaring straight ahead at no one. Mak didn’t even glance at Rhett as she walked past. Her boots thumped hard against the floor, as if she were slamming them down on purpose. Rhett wouldn’t have ruled that out.
They followed Mak into the armory, where she, Theo, Treeny, and Basil all began selecting a set of weapons. Theo took down an ax that was at least half his size. It made him look a bit like Paul Bunyan when he rested it on his shoulder. Treeny, the sweet, silent little kid that she was, had about a dozen throwing knives in her hands, fanning them out and examining them like some kind of ninja. Mak was strapping a long bow knife to her leg. She pulled angrily at the ties, keeping her eyes down.
It was Basil that finally broke Rhett’s shocked silence. Basil was spinning a pair of short-handled scythes on his fingers like they were drumsticks, making gleaming circles in the air. Scythes. Literal scythes.
“I thought you said the cloak-and-scythe thing wasn’t your style,” Rhett said, eyeing the four of them as if they were bombs about to go off.
Basil grinned.
“Yeah, well, I’m a traditionalist, I suppose.” He gave the scythes one last admiring look and then crossed them on his back, where they slipped into some sort of specialized holsters.
It looked as if they were preparing to go to war, one fought with only these medieval-looking tools.
“What the hell is all this for?” Rhett was stunned by the immensity of the armory. But the need for it was suddenly clear. “What else is out there?”
Basil sighed and gave Mak a hard look. He was waiting for her to explain. When she finally made eye contact with Basil, his eyes widened and he just barely tipped his head in Rhett’s direction.
Mak rolled her eyes and sighed.
“Psychons,” she said.
“Psychos?” Rhett cried.
“No, psy-chons.”
“What … what are they?” Rhett asked.
“They’re monsters,” Treeny answered in her wavering voice, a voice that made her sound like she was constantly on the verge of tears. The word monsters made her sound even more like a little kid having a nightmare.
Basil chimed in. “They’re the more literal inspiration for the Grim Reaper as the world knows him today: the skeletal specter who comes in the night to take your soul away. Except psychons don’t need scythes. They are their own weapons. And they don’t transport souls. They eat them.”
Rhett gave the idea of a skeleton monster a chance to settle into his head, then said, “What do they look like?”
“You might just find out,” Basil said, giving himself a pat down to make sure he had everything he needed. “Or maybe not. We don’t run into them very often. In truth, we’re always kind of on the run from them. But we’ve managed to keep our distance. I’ll give you the whole history
lesson another time. Right now you need to pick something out and we need to get our asses in gear.”
Mak was already stomping out the way they had come in.
“Hey, boss!” Theo called to her. She stopped and turned back, eyebrows raised. “Yous forgot this.” Theo tossed something else at her, something large and lethal-looking: a machete. Mak caught it deftly by the handle … and actually grinned.
“Thanks, Theo,” she said, and continued out the door.
Theo followed her out, leaving Rhett with Basil and Treeny, who were just about ready to go, it seemed.
Rhett gave the rows of weapons an uncertain glance. Once, he’d nearly cut two of his fingers off with a kitchen knife trying to slice a pineapple. How was he supposed to handle a sword that was as long as his arm? Or something even bigger?
“Do any of these come with instruction manuals?” he asked.
Basil chuckled and gave Rhett a pat on the shoulder.
“I said there wouldn’t be training for collecting souls,” he said. “But I promise there’ll be formal training on weapons handling and combat. If we do run into any of the creepies out there, we all have to be ready.” He glanced back at Treeny, who had at some point picked up her tablet again. She was poking at it impatiently. “For now, just find something that you’re comfortable with.”
“Do you have any potato peelers?” Rhett said.
Basil only grinned and followed Treeny back out to the stairs.
All of a sudden Rhett was alone with the world’s biggest assortment of dismembering utensils. He didn’t have much time to choose. He had to catch up with the group if he (a) wanted to tag along on his first … whatever it was they were going to do and (b) wanted to avoid getting lost on this ridiculous ship.
He scanned a few rows of items, noting knives and spears and even a flail. But there was something else …
It looked like a far more violent pair of brass knuckles. It had a dark wood handle and metal rings for his fingers. From the sides of the knuckles were two smaller blades that curved out and up, and from the tops of the knuckles were two longer blades that went straight-out, shrinking to deadly points. He picked it up. He didn’t even know what to call it but internally thought of it as a knuckle blade. It was easy to hold on to and looked like it could do a lot of damage—it even had a sheath of its own, one that Rhett could strap to his leg. He weighed it in his hand, gave it a pathetically dull test-swipe through the empty air, and decided this was the one.
