by Devon Monk
“Looks like plenty here we can take with us,” he said. “We can load up and move on.”
“We’re going to bury them first.” Rose’s voice was tight, her face set in something more than determination. It was set in sorrow.
“Dig graves?” he asked. “Night’s upon us, Miss Small. Whatever or whoever did this to these people could be nearby. I don’t think slinging a shovel is going to do us, or in the long run them, any good.”
“I won’t leave them like this. And you shouldn’t want to either, Mr. Hunt. They deserve a decent burial. They deserve to have their souls put to a proper rest.”
“I agree they deserve a decent burial,” he said. “But it is too dangerous for us to administer it.”
“I’ve heard you,” she said. “But there isn’t anything about this new land that isn’t dangerous. That doesn’t mean we have to be the kind of people who turn away from the mercy at hand.”
Rose walked to the back of the room, the lantern light swinging shadows and bright at each other like trapeze artists reaching for the catch. She picked up a shovel and then, without a word, walked across the room and out the door, leaving the dark to swallow Cedar whole.
He took in a lungful of it and sighed. The girl meant well, but the last thing he wanted to do right now was dig a grave, much less dig one big enough for four, or who knew how many more. He walked over to the counter and rested his hand there.
A song, like sour trumpets trembling in the distance rose up through his fingertips. He knew that fleeting tune, knew its haunting rhythms and trills. It was the song of the Strange, of one Strange in particular.
Mr. Shunt.
Suddenly, the chill of the night and the dark and death squeezed down around him. They’d killed Mr. Shunt. He’d seen him killed, seen his innards stretched out and pounded to a mash even the crows wouldn’t pick over. He’d seen the bits of Mr. Shunt smashed apart by Jeb Lindson, Mae’s dead husband.
There was no possibility a man, nor any other creature, could come back together after the taking apart Mr. Shunt had received.
The wind huffed against the rafters, silencing the song as a fresh scatter of rain broke from the sky.
But then, there was no man nor creature like Mr. Shunt. If there was anything in this world unkillable, it would be him.
Suddenly, the harvest made sense. Mae had said Mr. Shunt fell into pieces and sewed himself back together again. Maybe he needed more parts.
But if Shunt were still in the town, hell, if he’d been within thirty miles of the place, Cedar would know. He wasn’t here. But he had been.
“Mr. Hunt?” Rose said from the door, her lantern clutched tight in one hand, the shovel in the other. “I think you’d better see this.”
“We’re leaving,” Cedar said, making to walk around behind the counter for the supplies. “Now. Come take an armful.”
Rose didn’t say anything. Not a peep. Wasn’t like her.
He glanced up. She was still standing in the doorway, the shine of light carving out holes of dark against the sweet angles of her face. There was more than just rain falling from the brim of her hat to wet her face. There were tears.
“Rose?” He came out from behind the counter and walked to her. “Rose?”
“I looked into houses. A half dozen houses,” she said. “They’re all dead.” She looked up into his face. “Children too, Mr. Hunt. Little babies missing their feet and hands, all carved up…”
Cedar wanted to tell her not to worry about the dead. To tell her that if they left these people behind it was a civilized choice. But that was not true. The place stank of the Strange. And he had seen the Strange do terrible things with the unburied dead.
“We’ll do what we can for them,” he said. “Give them a grave and a prayer, the only mercy still in our hands.”
Rose wiped at her nose and nodded. “We’ll need to gather them all up. Maybe in the middle of town? The clearing?”
“That should do,” Cedar said. “Let’s get the Madders to help. Quickly.”
Cedar followed her back out into the rain. They mounted up and tracked back to the wagon.
Alun was leaning at the side of it, the huge brim of his hat and the angle of the wagon blocking rain and wind. He puffed on his pipe while the youngest and tallest Madder, Cadoc, paced about, a strange device in his hands.
The device resembled an ear trumpet. He held it up to one ear, a rope running from the ear trumpet to wrap around the top of a cane in his left hand that he stuck into the ground. He paused for a moment, as if listening through the ear horn, then pulled the cane tip out of the soil and swung it to tap the ear trumpet before spiking the cane back into the wet ground again.
Cedar didn’t know what Cadoc Madder was doing, but then he rarely could fathom the man’s actions.
“We’ll be needing your help,” Cedar said. “Bryn’s too.”
“Are we hunting the Holder now, Mr. Hunt?” Alun asked.
“No. We are hauling and digging,” Cedar said. “There’s dead in this town. Rose and I have agreed we’ll see to their burial before we move on.”
Cadoc Madder had stopped pacing. He turned to look at them as if they’d suddenly dropped out of a blue sky and brought the moon down with them.
Alun pulled the pipe from between his teeth and pointed it at Cedar. “What do you think killed all these people? The Holder. It fell into this town, and snuffed their lives out like a wet wick. If a piece of it remains behind, the death will spread, creep to the next town, and kill off the living there. Finding the Holder is a damn sight more important than burying the dead.”
“The Strange have been here,” Cedar said. “Surely you know what sport the Strange can have with the dead.”
“Of course I know! Hang the dead and hang the Strange. If we find the Holder we won’t need to stay here to see any of it.”
Cedar drew his gun and cocked back the hammer. “Rose Small, myself, and these bullets disagree with you.”
Both Madder brothers went stone cold. Even the smoke from Alun’s pipe seemed to stop moving.
“No need for guns,” Mae said as she came round from back of the wagon leading her mule. “Let us tend those who have been lost.” She wore a duster—Cedar thought it might belong to one of the Madder brothers, and though she’d rolled up the sleeves, it was huge on her thin frame. She’d changed her bonnet for a man’s hat—again, Cedar guessed it to be one of the Madders’.
He had no idea what she was doing out of bed, nor if she was in her right mind.
“Enough standing and pointing weapons,” Mae insisted. “Let’s put these people to rest so we can move on and find the Holder.” Her voice was clear. Strong.
Alun stared at her warily, as one might a bowl of nitroglycerin left to boil on the stove. “The sooner we’re to it, the sooner we’ll be quit of this place,” he finally said. “Cadoc, fetch up brother Bryn, and bring the wagon and the steam shovel along.”
Cadoc swung up into the wagon and started off, the wheels sending a spattering of mud to slap their boots.
Alun turned an eye on Cedar. “I hope you know what it is you’re doing, Mr. Hunt. Whole town of the dead is going to take time to bury, and we haven’t that to spare.”
“You bring out the digging device, I’ll gather wood to fire it.”
“Rose and I can gather the wood,” Mae said. “Unless you’d rather we gather the bodies, Mr. Hunt?”
No. He very much did not want them to be carrying dead bodies around like kindling. He didn’t know how long this break of clarity she was experiencing was going to last.
“Keep your guns ready,” he said. “Both of you. This night is filled with harm.”
“We’ll do just that.” Rose gave him a look that meant she’d also keep an eye on Mae. “If we need for anything, we’ll come calling.”
Cedar nodded. Rose could more than look after herself and Mae to boot. Gathering wood, even in the night where wild things crept, was a fair shake better than dragging
dead folk into a pile.
Wil skulked out of the shadows, his eyes catching copper from the low light of Rose’s lantern. He padded silently over to Rose and Mae and looked up at Cedar. It wouldn’t be the new moon for a few days yet, which meant he would remain in wolf form until then.
He’d go with the women to gather wood and watch for danger.
Rose nudged her horse off a bit while Mae swung up atop her mule. “Since we’re gathering in the center of town,” Rose said, “let’s see if there’s a woodpile near to it. If not, then we’ll check other houses close by.”
“Good,” Mae agreed.
“Didn’t figure you to be the kind of man who endangered the people under your care,” Alun said as the women headed off. “Some other reason you’re fired up to bury the dead?”
“The Strange are near. The ground stinks of them.”
“All the more reason for us to be moving on. Hastily.”
“The bodies have been picked apart by Mr. Shunt.”
Alun fell into a full-halt silence. “That can’t be so,” he breathed. “You killed him.”
“Jeb Lindson killed him,” Cedar said. “Those bodies we found have been gleaned and cleaned. Bits missing. Specific bits, as if just the best of each person was taken.”
“You’re sure it’s not an animal?”
“Yes.”
“Savages?” Alun asked.
“No.”
“And you’re certain it’s Shunt?”
“I know that devil,” Cedar said. “The smell of him on the bodies. The song of him left in the things he’s touched.”
Alun just stood there in the rain as if that news rolled like an earthquake under his boots and changed the landscape around him.
“We should look for him,” Alun said.
“He’s not in the town,” Cedar said. “Come and gone, maybe far on as a week ago.”
Alun got moving again and Cedar paced him atop Flint.
Finally Alun said, “Dark things slip in this night, Mr. Hunt. You can feel the Strange?”
“Yes.”
“They can feel you too,” Alun noted. “They know the one man who can track them, hunt them, tear them apart. They know you’re here, you and your Pawnee curse. And they don’t fear the dark.”
“That suits me fine,” Cedar said. “Because neither do I.”
It didn’t take long to reach the center of town. Cedar and Alun got to work moving the dead, starting with the family in the general store, and lifting, or as the circumstance required, dragging the bodies to the clearing.
Cadoc finally returned with the wagon, having found Bryn. After a brief talk with Alun, they unloaded several crates and a boiler out of the wagon. Bryn got busy assembling pieces of a device that looked more suited to pumping a well than digging a grave, while Cadoc and Alun took the wagon farther off to gather up any more people they could find.
It was grim work. Silent work.
Cedar had done his share of digging graves in his life. He’d stood above far too many saying his last farewells. His wife’s. His child’s.
Many more.
These people were strangers to him, yet the shame of so many lost, stripped and picked over like a feast of convenience, burned a deep anger in him.
He carried a small body toward the pile, each step slower than the last.
The beast within twisted and stretched. It wanted out. It wanted to hunt. It wanted to destroy the Strange. It wanted to destroy Mr. Shunt.
Cedar found it more and more difficult to find a reason to fight that need. A man’s hands could do as much damage as the beast. A man’s hands could tear a person limb from limb. Why not let the beast take his mind and use his hands for its needs?
“Mr. Hunt?” Rose said. Again, he realized.
He blinked until he could see the world. He’d been standing for some time now.
There was no rain, just the cold exhalation of the night against his skin.
“You can put her right there,” Rose said gently.
Cedar looked down. He held a girl in his arms. Maybe two or three years old. Not much bigger than his own daughter had been when he held her, dead, in his arms.
This little girl was cold and gone, a splash of blood on her dress around the hole where her stomach should be. There were no tomorrows left for his daughter. And now there were no tomorrows left for this child.
Cedar swallowed hard and placed her gently next to a woman missing the top half of her skull. He didn’t know if it was her mother. He hoped it might be.
“I’m going off for more wood,” Rose said. “Mrs. Lindson is going to stay with Bryn Madder to help mind the fire and boiler. Are you all right?”
In the firelight Rose looked softer. Lovely as an angel come to comfort. Cedar knew she had no reason to tell him what everyone was doing.
She must have seen him standing there, frozen with grief and memories, the dead girl in his arms. Her words had tethered him back to the night, eased the beast, and shaken the memory’s hold.
Rose was a practical woman. And kind.
“I’ll come along with you,” he said.
“No need, Mr. Hunt. There’s a good stack just behind that house over there. One or two more loads and Mr. Madder says he’ll have enough for the digging matic to start working.”
Cedar glanced over at Mae, who was working next to Bryn Madder. They had built a fire that could likely be seen for twenty miles.
The boiler was now attached by long metal tubes to the pump device, and Bryn was wrenching wheels onto the base of the thing. It looked like a railroad handcart, with a lumpy brass teakettle the size of a pony bolted to it and a wooden shovel attached by long handles to the front, controlled by pulleys and ropes. Probably a mining matic the brothers had devised.
“I’d prefer to come with you,” Cedar said.
Rose inhaled as if to say more, then stopped. She glanced at the dead girl in the pile, then at his hands and coat, which were both bloody enough, the rain couldn’t wash them clean.
Finally, she looked at his eyes. Likely seeing the sorrow he could not hide.
“Of course, Mr. Hunt,” she said softly. “I’d appreciate your company.”
He walked with her to a lean-to that had been built to keep the worst of the weather off the wood stacked up against a house. There wasn’t enough room in that small shed for two, so he waited outside.
“Enough firewood here to keep a person warm till next summer,” Rose said as she bent beneath the roof eve and piled several pieces into her arms.
“That’s true,” Cedar said distractedly. The night wind brought with it the sound of crying, the soft weeping of a child. A child close by.
“Have you looked in the house across the way there for bodies?” he asked.
“Not yet. I thought after I gathered the wood, I’d help out finding people.”
“I’m going to look inside,” Cedar said.
“I’ll come with you if you wait,” Rose called back.
He didn’t wait. He strode up to the back door of the house and tried the latch.
The door opened onto the kitchen. A woman lay on the floor. She was missing both of her arms. Silent. Dead.
In the far corner of the room huddled a child. He’d guess her to be maybe eight or ten years old. Still in her nightgown, bareheaded, barefoot, her cheek tipped onto her bent knees, her hands gently clasping her ankles.
She didn’t move. But a soft, wheezing cry drifted from the corner of the room. Cedar put his hand on the doorjamb. No song of the Strange came to him. He took a cautious step into the room.
“Child?” he said quietly.
The girl still didn’t stir. But the wheezy sob continued.
Cedar crossed the kitchen, carefully stepping around the mother, and knelt in front of the girl.
“There, now,” he said. “It’s going to be fine.” He placed his hand on her shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t startle her.
At his touch, the song of the Strange shot through h
im like greased lightning, cracking in his skull and stabbing straight through his feet to fuse him to the earth.
The Strange hadn’t just touched this girl, they had infested her.
He could feel a tremble, a ticking beneath his fingers.
The girl was not a girl. Or at least not anymore. Now she was a hollowed-out shell. A doll with clockwork innards that ticked, ticked, ticked, slowly winding down while leather bellows wheezed out the last of the air it had been pumping into her lungs.
The Strange had made her. Or remade her.
The girl fell sideways. A metal key stuck out of her back. A small key made of tin that ground to a stop like a music box striking the last tine.
“Mr. Hunt?” It was Rose, come into the room.
“Rose!” Cedar called. “Don’t!”
But it was too late. The key stopped moving. Touching the girl had sprung the Strange trap. He’d set off some kind of trigger set deep within her. A trigger that sparked a short fuse.
Cedar was on his feet, running, throwing himself to shield Rose. They tumbled out the door, but the explosion was immense. The kitchen, the mother, and the girl flew into bits. A barrage of flesh and bone and wood rained down around them where they lay out in the mud. His leather duster shielded him from the worst of it.
But Rose was not so lucky. The tin key arrowed into her left shoulder and burrowed in deep. She yelled, and her eyes went wide before they rolled back in her head.
“Rose?” Cedar lifted up off her. She was breathing, fast and shallow, but she did not come to. There was too much blood. Her blood.
He needed Mae. Needed to get that bit of metal out of her. Needed medicines and stitching and herbs.
Cedar swept Rose up into his arms, his heart drumming hard.
A sound behind him made him turn.
Even in the darkness, the mess of blood and flesh from the explosion was startling.
But not as startling as the dead mother who lay on the ground and shuddered. Something—no, not something; the Strange, ghostlike with too many eyes, too many mouths, too many arms—pulled up from the ground beneath her and slipped inside her like a man shrugs into an ill-fitted shirt.
