Nails cut deep into his shoulders and arms. Blood oozes out and the fire in his belly is burning through his skin. Eyesight narrowing, he flexes through the pain and lifts the monster off him. With a thrust he sends him rolling as he makes for the opposite direction.
“You’ll never escape me, brother,” the man taunts. “This is where your little escapade ends. Join me or I’ll send you back hogtied and crying for daddy. Oh, won’t he be so proud?
Lifting himself from the ground, Merchant squeezes his grip on the ax and the worn handle feels natural between his fingers. Blood drips from the well-used edge, chips and cracks working their way through the hardened stone edge.
“I’ll be leaving when you’re dead,” Merchant answers.
Another infected throws itself at Merchant. The body hits him square between the shoulder and claws its way onto his back. Bowing at the waist, he lets the creature fall, a chunk of his ear coming away with broken nails. The head of the ax splits skull and wilted brains leaves the monster dead on the ground.
“This is growing tiresome, brother. I think you need to make a choice.”
Merchant looks up. Kelly, body shaking with fear stands beside the man. Blood covers her from head to toe, her hair plastered to her pale face, bottom lip quivering as an infected pushes her until she is close enough for the man to put his arm around her shoulders.
“I made you all a promise. You, for this young one and our cousin who I hope is still alive. Is he, darling? Is sweet old cousin still breathing or has he decided on his three-day rest again?”
“You fucking monster,” Kelly answers.
The man shrugs, the muscles bunching beneath his thin skin and the fires consuming his eyes brightening as his smile grows.
“Your choice, Merchant. That’s what she called you, isn’t it? You were always so fond of the names. I honestly can’t keep them straight. I think we are going to have to have a small talk about that after this sad business is over.”
Merchant eyes Kelly standing next to the man. There is no time for him to reach them. She will be dead if he tries to get any closer. The anger and hatred in his stomach is relentless as he looks deep into those green flames.
There is no getting out of this. Even if he lets the girl and the priest go, this will not end here. He takes a firmer grip on the ax, the polished wood melding to the knuckles of his grip.
“Oh, come on, brother. Ok, little girl. Let’s give him a little show of what will happen should he choose the wrong path,” the man says as he turns Kelly toward him and stoops lower to look her eye to eye. “This will hurt for only a moment. I promise it won’t be as permanent as the others.”
He lifts a hand toward her cheek, a single finger extended, the hooked nail reaching for the stained skin of her face.
A howl rattles the buildings and trees around them as fingers punch through green flames. Kelly screams as the evil burns skin and the smell of charred flesh smokes from the man’s face. Shoving her away, the demon rears back and stands, swollen hands covering his face and black smoke streaking its way between fingers and bones.
Merchant does not wait. In a fluid motion he throws the ax. Inside he feels the fire within his gut explode and a tidal wave of anger and emptiness burns its way through every muscle and blood vessel in his body. The ax, slicing its way through the air cuts a black streak of darkness as it chops through the light. Leaving an oily trail behind, there is a flash of shadow and darkness a moment before the head reaches the wailing demon.
Stone end extending, the cracked edge draws to a point, a glistening blade of darkness and blood as it pierces through thin flesh and brittle bone.
The demon stumbles. Ax now embedded between neck and shoulder. Kelly falls away, large streams of green gore fountaining where the ax cuts into ruined flesh turning dark and spidering its way down the man’s body.
She trips and Merchant vaults over her like a broken log. The infected holding Kelly jumps in front, a meager attempt to use its body as a shield. A fist to its gut and then a knee to the face, the creature tumbles with half its face caved in and blood and fluid leaking from a crack through the bone.
“Leave… leave me be, brother,” the man pleads as he stumbles backward, black soot running down between fingers stained dark between wilting bones.
More green bile pours from the open wound where the ax remains seated. Merchant reaches him, hand firmly griping onto the ax. He heaves and kicks out with a boot across the man’s chest.
A wooden fence shatters as the body is thrown through it.
Merchant lets the ax hang heavy in his hand. The fire in his belly returns and he watches as the thing before him, no more man than the creatures still running around this world. The poisoned blood roots its way through his body, leaving a highway visible against the thin pale skin that reddens and pulls tight as his body thins with every ounce of disease that leaks from the open wound.
“I am not your brother,” Merchant says.
The wounded man in front of him slides up against a tree, the harsh edges of the bark cutting deep gouges out of the layers of flesh inflamed across its back.
“You’ll understand one day,” the dying man coughs. A smile returns to his face, a hideous thing against the charred remains where his eyes have burned deep into his skull. “This will not be the end for you and me. We are family. We are meant to be together. Born of one father, we will return—.”
The words are cut short as the ax cleaves its way through skull and splits it clear down to the breastbone. A smoking cloud of green gas and bile spews from the opening, burning the tree trunk and the sparsely covered ground as the corpse slides to the side. Small fires ignite and quickly go out as the blades of grass sizzle and turn to ash. Where the tree is scarred, sap spills out and puts out the flames with a sweet smell of burning sugar.
It is over. The scream of hundreds of infected calls into the air with the anguish of the dying and pained. None turn to fight him. Spinning on their heels, they make for the forest edge and disappear back into the shadows.
Merchant takes a deep breath. The stench of blood and gore. A familiar smell. Full of iron and decay. He watches the billowing trails of dark clouds still rising over the ruined town.
Yes, it is over. For him the fight is finished. The tug of the highway and the path west returns, an aching in his heart that nags like an infected cut. He looks where Kelly lays curled onto the ground, her hands cradled against her chest as she sobs and shakes on the ground.
The battle is finished, but there is still one more thing to do.
28
Secrets and Promises Hurt All the Same
White blinding pain. Muscle spasms and teeth grinding themselves to little nubs. Kelly has never felt anything like this before.
She can’t move her hands. Pressing them against her chest, she rocks and prays for God to take it all away. The memory of her hand, the fingers pushing inside those fires.
Why did she do it?
The heat almost forced her to black out. She wishes it would have. The smell of meat cooking on an open fire. Her own meat, the flesh on her own hand sizzling as her fingers pushed inside that thing’s skull.
Her stomach clenches and she needs to vomit, but then she’d have to relax enough to open her mouth. She can’t do that. That would bring back the pain of her hand.
Screams are everywhere. Monsters wailing in the distance and she adds her own voice to the mix. Tears burn as they run down her face. The taste of blood fills her mouth and every bone in her body aches and cracks.
“Here, let me see,” a man’s voice beckons.
Kelly tries to roll away. Squeezing her eyes as tightly as she can, she forces herself onto her back, a meager attempt to reach the other shoulder and distance herself from whoever won’t help get rid of the pain.
“Kelly, it’s going to be OK. Let me see your hand,” the voice says again. Deep and thick, the words contain an odd sense of comfort yet a distance she wants to let grow until the
world takes her out of her misery.
“Get the hell away from me,” she gets out between sobs.
A flash of pain rocks her body as she is successful in rolling onto the other shoulder. Pulling her ruined hand tighter against her chest, she regrets every life choice she has ever made as the flesh cracks and her closed eyes roll into her head as her mind tries desperately to let go.
“Let me see those hands of yours,” the voice returns with a firm grip on her shoulder and back that forces her to sit up.
Vomit spews from her mouth, the acid burning her tongue and choking her as some retraces its steps back into the deep parts of her throat.
“I… said leave me alone unless you are going to kill me, then get it over with,” she coughs out.
The stench of sweat and blood is salty and thick as the stranger blocks out the light filtering in through her eyelids. A firm grip tightens around her arms and shoulders, holding her upright and pulling itself closer.
“Open your eyes, Kelly. You are safe now,” the voice continues.
Wearily, she complies. The light burns like a torch. The pain of her hands is almost replaced as the scorching sun sears into her vision. Tears leak from her eyes, but the darkness of the figure’s shadow lessons the shock as he comes into focus.
Merchant.
Broad shoulders cut to ribbons beneath the slashes of long nails and teeth, the man looks down at her, his dark eyes silent, but the calmness of his voice telling her enough.
“Is, is he?” she starts.
He nods.
“Whatever he was is dead. He won’t be hurting you or anyone else any longer,” Merchant says. With a gentle pulling, he forces her to let her hands slide away from her body. “It was brave what you did back there. Let me see those hands of yours. Maybe…”
Flesh peels away from the front of her shirt as her hands separate. Cracked and flaking like overcooked steak, three of the fingers on her right hand are charred away to tiny nubs where the knuckles meet her hand and the pinky is dead and lifeless. The left is untouched by flame but a cut slices deep between the two middle fingers and blood streams down her wrists as the wound flaps like an open shirt.
“Oh my,” Kelly tries to say and loses the words with another mouth full of vomit.
The world spins and she topples forward. Her vision clouds. This is worse than she thought. Pain ruptures her confusion, refusing to let her pass out and forget it all.
“Maybe the priest can help you. If he can cure the infected,” Merchant says.
“Brother George,” she begins to correct him. “Brother! Father!”
Kelly tries to rise to her feet, the pain and nausea, the death and destruction, all but forgotten in the sudden realization of what she left behind. Merchant catches her as the muscles in her body, driven by adrenaline, respond with the little strength they have. Gently placing his large hands firmly under her arms, he lifts and steadies her shaking legs.
Bodies lay everywhere. Blood pooling as the corpses cool beneath the mid-day heat. Limbs are torn, bones are broken. She looks up at the man she now uses for support. He looks into the distance. He did this. All of it.
No.
That isn’t correct. She swallows hard and coughs up another mouth full of bile but forces herself to swallow it back. She took part in this. These things, these people are dead because of her as well.
She pulled the trigger.
She begged him to come here.
Her hands begin to shake, and the pain is a sharp edge of a knife. This will be the punishment given to her by God. Turn the blade on your fellow man and suffer when it is turned back on you. Taking a deep breath, she moves her legs forward, a weak gesture, but one that the big man is willing to help with.
Slowly and cautiously, they move around and through the rubble of her life. It is a graveyard, but one far older than she remembers. Gray ash, more dust than she can remember, covers everything. The bodies, torn and piled in forgotten eternal slumber look ancient. Skin flakes away where it has pulled tight against the skeleton and clothes flap in the dry heat, a cobweb of sand and weeds caught between gaping teeth and dried mouths.
How can her home be like this?
Kelly takes a deep breath, the stench of rot and the past seeping deep into the crevices hidden within her soul. No, this is not her home. Everything is gone, yet she survives.
There is some strength in that. Like the muscles of the man who holds her steady, there is a resilience in realizing that if God had meant for her to be dead, she would be.
Following the darkened path, littered with scorched earth and a streak of filth that kicks up beneath their feet, Kelly lets Merchant lead her back to the church. It is exactly as she knew it would be. Somehow, deep inside, she could never let herself think it would be any different.
Red lays sprawled on the ground. Her shirt torn and dried the color of the hair no longer sprouting from her head. Wounds cover her body, eyes closed as a wet streak drips from the corner of her mouth, pooling beneath the arm that stretches for the dark figure inches from her longest fingers.
Brother George. His half-naked body lays motionless in the dirt. Gray ash turns the once bright hue of his skin into a burial coat, thin and worn around the edges.
Planting her feet, Merchant is quick to notice and does not push her forward. There will be no saving her hands. No saving Red. There is no saving any of them. Her world begins to swirl in her mind again.
She is alone.
The emptiness swallows her. Grief and anguish flood her with emotions so final it stops her heart, and she drops to her knees. Words escape her lips, harsh and unforgiving, but useless none-the-less.
Merchant lets her rest against his legs as the tears and sobbing rock her body. The loneliness whistles through the dry bones of the town, a sad song and she can feel no darker.
Coughs break the horrific melody.
Wet and shallow, the compressed remnants of life rattle the thick chest of Brother George and the hand closest to Red’s corpse begins to twitch.
“Father!” Kelly screams and begins to crawl her way to him.
Gently taking her in his own grip, Merchant lifts her off her knees and carries her like a child the rest of the way. Dark blood greets her as it pools in the corners of George’s mouth. The ribs of his chest barely crack the ash layering his skin and his eyes are nothing but slits where dirt and blood has almost succeeded in crusting them shut.
“Father,” Kelly sobs.
“Kk.. Kelly,” he gets out through a wheezing breath.
“It’s OK, father,” she whispers back. “The monsters are gone. We are safe now.”
His hand twitches and moves its way toward Red.
“Red,” he says, his finger stopping as the tip reaches the cold edge of her lifeless hand. “Merchant.”
“He is right next to me, father. Red… she didn’t make it. She died trying to save us.”
The corner of his lip curls creating a new drip of blood rolling down his graying face.
“I cannot help him. He is beyond my reach,” Brother George struggles to say.
Kelly looks up and Merchant shrugs back. Waving with her head, the big man squats down near both of them, and gently, he takes one of the hands into his own.
“No,” Brother George says. “Give me Red’s hand. Kelly, you take the other. Do not let go, no matter what happens.”
“Father, she is gone,” Kelly says. “Merchant is right beside you.”
“Merchant knows there is nothing I can do to help him. What remains of his life is of his making. Only he can save himself from what is to come. Now hurry, Kelly. There is still but one thing I can do for the both of you.”
Taking a firm grip on his hand, she waits as Merchant steps away to bring Red over. Laying her body next to his, he places her limp fingers with the unmoving hand that lays crumple next to George’s leg.
“Remember, Kelly. I will,” Brother George coughs out. “Through the darkness I will always be ther
e with you. Walking beside you.”
With his final words, Kelly can feel a heat pushing its way through the hand that holds George’s own. She squeezes tighter, biting back the pain, as the feeling is full of comfort and tenderness washes over her.
Suddenly and without warning the world begins to grow brighter. Not like the sun reaching its highest point, but as if the dirt and the grime were to be washed away. Colors become more vibrant, the smells cleaner, and the air is a sweet taste over her tongue as the warm water runs its course through her body.
Looking around, she can no longer see the death and the destruction. The burned buildings and the piles of infected sprawled across the square are all gone. Even the church, the building she has called home for so long is nowhere to be seen. Inside, the warmth turns to a filling. A meal with family that will keep her safe and happy stretches to the ends of her insides. A smile pulls at the corners of her lips.
This is heaven.
It is everything she has ever dreamed it would be. The silky touch of the world around her begins to pull at the lids of her eyes. A heaviness whispers of a rest that will bring back the energy and strength lost from her soul. Turning back time to what feels like an age that no one can remember.
Kelly takes a deep breath. The smell of lilac and jasmine fill her and she lets the sleep take hold. A soft pillow beneath her head. A warm blanket to keep her safe. The rest comes gently, and she does not fight as it takes her away.
“Holy shit! Can’t you see that!” Snake-Eyes screams.
The ghost is on his knees, white suit and sport coat leaving no marks on the scorched earth. Tears, as translucent as his ethereal skin, run down his cheeks and even the eyes of the snake tattoo on his neck squint.
Merchant staggers back as the light blinds him and forces a hand over his face. The three of them are engulfed in it. A heatless fire. Kelly, Brother George, and Red. The ghost may be blabbering on about what is happening within those flames, but to him it is something he has only seen once in his life and even then, it was too much.
Traveling Merchant (Book 2): Pestilence Page 30
