Old Broken Road

by Alexander, K. M.

  She nodded warily and inhaled a deep breath. Her chest heaved up and my eyes were drawn to it. She caught me looking and smirked, the change lighting up her face and bringing a little warmth to the coldness of Methow.

  We looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment. Our faces close. My heart was hammering so loud I swore she could hear it. Everything told me to lean forward and plant my lips on hers. Damn the Reunified’s rules…

  Her forehead touched mine, and our lips were drawn slowly together.

  Then—

  “Hey, boss. You said you wanted to inspect the barri—aw, hell, sorry. I didn’t see… sorry,” Hannah said awkwardly, realizing what she stumbled into.

  My heart sank. I caught a flash in Samantha’s eyes, and then she looked away. Her lips turned down as the wind whipped her hair around her face. Was that disappointment or embarrassment?

  “I’ll see if Taft needs help,” Samantha mumbled, rising, and quickly walked away, a hand on her cheek. The moment had stretched between us, and then snapped. I stared in the direction she had walked.

  “Carter’s cross. I’m sorry, boss,” said Hannah.

  The meal was successful and the townsfolk were grateful. The mood around the square had changed. Occasional laughter rippled through the crowd, and words were spoken not in hushed whispers but in raised voices. Smiles could be seen breaking through once icy facades. It’s amazing what a full belly can do.

  After the meal the men and women who volunteered as guards gathered around Wensem as he gave them their orders and times of watch. Between the citizens of Methow and my company we were able to scrape together two full watches, each taking a six-hour shift. It was a relief. A blanket of protection for a town that desperately needed it.

  I drew first watch.

  Later that night I stood on a small platform that ran the length of the western barricade. It was a shoddy thing. A stack of barrels. A hammered section of panel. Some rough-hewn timber holding it all together. It wobbled as I climbed it. A frightened ox could have knocked it asunder.

  The torches burned in pools of amber light around the town, winking like summer fireflies. The lights popped and danced in the evening breeze and the Forest became a mass of shadows that seemed to writhe in the flickering.

  A gray mist seemed to hang around the town, barely there but promising a morning fog. A few hours earlier the sun had dipped behind the western mountains and now thick clouds swept in from the north and loomed above the town. The late autumn heat disappeared along with the sun leaving the valley shadowed in cold darkness. The occasional flash of heat lightning could be seen among the peaks of the western mountains, silhouetting the jagged stones against the clouds. Like the sharp teeth of some immense beast.

  I was grateful for the darkness. Six hours of staring out at a forest of corpses wouldn't do me any good. The torches already exposed too much.

  It had been Range and Chance who volunteered to set up the torches. The job gave them another chance to look for Shaler, but just as before, they came up empty. I felt bad for the two boys. I wanted to find their quarrelsome cousin, too. I hated thinking of her dying in such a terrible manner, but I also didn't want to think about what it meant for us as a company.

  Next to me on the platform sat Range. His keff was pulled tightly around his cheeks and jaw to lock in warmth. His brown eyes flicked around looking for something, anything. Jumping at each shadow and flicker of torchlight. His rifle was propped up on a small wall of paneling, his finger never far from the trigger.

  “Maybe she’s okay,” Range said absently, his words coming out in a cloud of vapor in the cool air. The kid seemed calm but a hint of madness lingered somewhere beneath. I wondered if I had the same tone in my voice.

  “Maybe,” I said, not wanting to dwell on it. Somewhere far off the sound of thunder rumbled low.

  Silence fell between us. Our watch would keep us up till one or two in the morning. The townsfolk brought us pots of thin black coffee and Taft had prepared skewers of salt pork to help keep us energized. It didn’t seem to be working. My eyes felt blurry and I was growing tired. I tried to calculate the time. It couldn’t have been much past ten or eleven.

  As we sat in the darkness my thoughts wandered back to the moment with Samantha. Why had it taken me a year to get to this point? Why hadn’t I just kissed her? In Lovat we weren’t together as much, sure… but out here on the trail, and in Syringa, we saw each other almost daily. I knew the drifter in me wanted to wander. I also knew that Samantha wasn't the drifting type. She was the settling type. But was that really the reason?

  I yawned and rubbed my eyes. Sleep was edging in. Everything was getting jumbled. The gray fog that seemed to hang around the town looked thicker. Everything seemed blurry, less sharp, like paraffin rubbed over a pair of goggles.

  An hour or so later the noise returned. It started low and long like the horn of a ship and echoed into a loud hammering like a gas engine on its last leg.

  The rickety barricade we sat upon vibrated. Something was different. The noise didn’t sound quite as deafening, it was brash and offensive but also more subdued. It was less explosive and loud and more… organic, somehow.

  It had changed.

  Something had changed.

  I shuddered. Machines couldn’t alter their rhythm like that. Something affected that noise. Something alive.

  The boats in the old fishing fleets were said to have unique sounds to their engines, such that folk from the fishing villages could recognize boats by the sound they made as they chugged across the water.

  I didn’t recognize this new noise. It wasn’t an engine I knew. It wasn’t the same sound we heard along the road to Methow. It had changed, and it had done so intentionally.

  “I hate that damned sound,” said Range, pulling his coat tighter and taking a swill from a cold cup of coffee.

  “You and me both,” I agreed. My eyes were fixed on the sky. A worried expression sketched across my face.

  We listened to it drone on and I wracked my brain trying to understand what it was and why it changed. My eyes continued to grow heavier. After a few moments I shifted, trying to wake myself up and asked, “Does it sound different tonight?”

  Range let out a loud yawn and peered at the sky. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I’m not screaming these words at you. It’s not as loud. Also the pattern is off. Way off, by the sound of it.”

  Range paused and I could see him breathe in the cold air, the side of his face lit by the torches. Eventually he nodded, his expression altering as he tilted his head to listen.

  “Less moaning metal,” I said.

  “Yeah, it’s—” his words cut off as his eyes flicked out somewhere across the Forest of the Dead. “You see that?”

  “What?” I said dumbly. I looked up, feeling surprisingly calm.

  Range stood on the shaky barricade and peered out.

  My own gaze turned to the pools of light scattered around the village. The gray fog seemed even thicker now. It seemed to subdue some of the torches. I blinked, exhaustion creeping into my limbs.

  “I don’t see anything. You sure it wasn’t a raccoon? A shambler maybe?” I hoped it wasn’t one of the gargoyles.

  Range pulled his rifle to his shoulder and for a while we stood gazing out at the foggy area beyond the bank of lights. Blurry-eyed, I looked over at the kid. The feeling of exhaustion deepened. I wondered what time it was. Second watch should be coming around to relieve us soon.

  “I don’t see anything,” I repeated.

  “I’m telling you, something was out there.”

  “One of Hannah’s gargoyles?” I asked, another yawn creeping into my question.

  “Maybe,” said Range, his own voice sounding heavy with sleep as he leaned forward and peered out into the blackness.

  “She has never seen them close. Not this close, at least,” I said. “Always from a distance.”

  “It was there,” he pointed a finger towards the n
orth. “Along the edge of that last pool of light,” he sniffed the air sharply and then declared, “I’m beat.”

  I squinted.

  The fire atop the torch danced.

  There was nothing.

  “Me too.”

  Pay attention, Wal! Something yelled from within.

  The mist felt heavier now and I really needed sleep, but the kid thought he saw something…. I squatted back down and stifled another yawn. “Okay. Let’s check it out. Rouse Wensem. We should at least send a party to investigate that area. See what it is you think you saw. I’ll stay here until relief comes by.”

  Range nodded and hopped down off the wall, disappearing into the gloom of the town square.

  Almost immediately, sleep overtook me.

  EIGHTEEN

  MY EYES SNAPPED OPEN. It took a while for my brain to register that it was morning. My back and knee ached. My neck was stiff and sore. My head still felt foggy and my eyes struggled to adjust. That same feeling from the previous evening. The blurriness hung with me, making it difficult to focus on details.

  How long was I asleep?

  Asleep!

  I had fallen asleep! On watch, no less! Cursing, I jerked upright.

  Range was nowhere to be found. In the gray morning I could see the shapes of the corpses scattered beyond the town. Among them tendrils of smoke rose from snuffed torches mixing with the low fog that hung above Methow.

  How long was I out? The exhaustion had come upon me so suddenly it was hard to remember. I went over everything.

  We had seen something.

  Range went to fetch Wensem so we could inspect the area.

  Then… nothing. That must have been when sleep took me.

  I blinked and stared at nothing for a moment. I struggled to process everything through the muddiness of sleepy consciousness.

  My stomach growled and snapped me out of my daze. Where was Range?

  I rolled from an awkward sitting position up into an even more awkward squat. My jacket and jeans felt damp with dew and my fingers and toes were frightfully cold. I flexed them, inhaling a deep breath of cool morning air. I had a brief sense of déjà vu.

  I pulled myself off the barricade and hobbled between two buildings towards the square at the center of town.

  A thin wisp of smoke mirrored the action of the snuffed torches from the center of the laager. Nothing else moved. Was the whole damn town asleep?

  A body was lying halfway between my post on the barricade and the laager. As I approached, I realized who it was and my hobbled walk turned into a hurried rush.

  Range!

  The young man was lying face-down in the dust. His rifle was off to one side. His lips and nose were stained with dried blood. Had he been attacked?

  “Range!” I blurted in a panic, dropping down and placing a hand on his back. Please don’t be dead, kid, I thought.

  His back rose with slow breaths. Unconscious. Alive. Relief washed over me. Range moaned.

  “Range! What happened?”

  “Time for the second watch?” he mumbled through a lethargic yawn, his eyes slowly blinking open.

  “Far past due. It’s morning.”

  Range seemed to come to his senses and he scrambled upright. His eyes widened. He looked around, his breathing escalating as panic sat in.

  “I fell asleep.”

  He looked around before repeating himself. “I fell asleep!” He rubbed his nose and bits of crusty blood came away on the back of his hand.

  “Looks like you took a spill on your way down.”

  “I…” he paused. “I really don’t remember it happening.”

  “Me neither. Lucky I was sitting down.”

  I didn’t like where this was going. Range and I had fallen asleep almost instantly and at the same time only a few feet from one another. Taft’s story about Bowles’ Folly flashed through my memory.

  “Let’s rouse Wensem.”

  I pushed off the ground with my good leg and hobbled over to the laager where the second watch dozed.

  Wensem lay in his bedroll quietly snoring. His naked chest rose and fell with each breath. I nudged him with the toe of my boot.

  “Huh? What?” Wensem said as his eyes opened. His hand jerked for his rifle until he realized it was me standing over him. “Is it time for … wait … is it morning? It’s morning!”

  I nodded.

  “Carter’s bloody cross! Wal, what happened?”

  Wensem sat upright looking the laager over. I waited as he pulled a shirt over his pale chest and slipped his long legs into old brown trousers.

  “I fell asleep,” I said.

  Wensem looked at Range who stood just past my left shoulder. “You let him?”

  “He did as well,” I explained. “We both did. Best as I can figure—at the same time. Neither of us really remember it happening.”

  Wensem grew serious, his lips drawing together tightly. He looked down at his bedroll. “Would explain why I didn’t wake up.”

  “Check the laager,” I ordered. “Account for everyone. I’ll see if the others along the barricades also fell asleep.”

  “I’d wager we already know the answer to that.”

  “Maybe,” I said over my shoulder. “Come on, Range.”

  I moved to one of the barricades along the north edge of town with Range trailing behind. I found two women volunteers—a dimanian and a maero—quietly dozing. We woke them, and listened to their embarrassed confusion for a while before continuing on to the next barricade.

  Again, we found another one of Methow’s citizens sleeping atop a barricade that consisted of piles of logs hammered together by heavy planks like a frontier wall. I roused him.

  “You fell asleep,” I said as he woke, blinking at me dreamily. “You here by yourself last night?”

  “No…” He looked around confused. “How long was I out?”

  “Most of the night,” said Range. He was holding his rifle at the ready, his face a mask of worry.

  “Who was with you?” I asked.

  “The scout, Clay…” said the man, nodding towards Hannah’s rifle which was propped up against a short wall. I picked it up. Dread filled my chest. “Last thing I remember, she went to get coffee and use the latrine. I don’t remember much after that… just you waking me up.” He rubbed his eyes.

  Worry nested itself in my gut. I wanted to rush around and find my scout before checking the rest of the barricades but I forced myself to breathe. My rational side told me there was a million other places Hannah could be: she could be sprawled out between here and the chuckwain or collapsed on the privy.

  I picked up her rifle and looked over my shoulder towards the laager. Signs of life could be seen as Wensem woke the members of the company and explained what had happened. She was probably there, among the group, having fallen asleep. Maybe a spilled cup of coffee laying next to her.

  But nothing I said to myself could shake the feeling that something was wrong.

  Thanking the man, I forced myself to walk to the other barricades to make sure everyone else was accounted for. As expected, all of the first shift had fallen asleep.

  When Range and I finished we hurried back to the laager where the company was milling about. I wanted to see Hannah among them.

  She’ll be there, I told myself. Drinking black coffee and swearing up a storm.

  Taft looked exhausted as she worked furiously at the grill off the rear of the chuckwain. Samantha stood, eyes open in that not-quite-awake expression, her hair a wild nest atop her head and tangled around the horns that grew from her temples. I passed into the center of the circle and did a mental count of the people gathered.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

  I counted again.

  Taft. Wensem. Samantha. Chance. Range. Myself.

  Six souls. Not seven. Hannah was missing.

  Carter’s cross, I swore to myself. My heart started to pound. “Wensem, have you seen Hannah?”

  He shook his he
ad, noticing her rifle in my hand. The familiar barrel, the heavy scope, the dusty cloth wrapped around the stock.

  “Wasn’t she on one of the north barricades?” he asked, his words rising in a worried octave as he realized why I asked.

  Range answered. “The guy she was with said she went to get coffee and use the latrine. He fell asleep shortly after.”

  Wensem let out a long slow breath, his steel-colored eyes meeting mine. His expression tinged on hopelessness.

  Hannah couldn’t be missing. I refused to believe it. She was one of the core members of the company, a potential partner in Bell Caravans. She was a hardened scout, could handle herself. She knew how to survive in the wild with nothing but her wits; something I wasn’t sure even I could do. There wasn’t anyone else who knew the Territories better. For Hannah to disappear… I couldn’t finish the thought.

  What were we dealing with?

  The dreams. The noise. The Forest. The kidnappings.

  Samantha’s words from the day before rose in my memory. “I think we’re dealing with another one of the Firsts,” she'd said. I remembered the worried look in her eyes.

  It couldn’t be true… could it? Cybill had been killed. Crushed in the tunnel. She was supposed to be the one who prepared the way for the others. Shouldn’t her death have stopped the others from returning?

  If I was a praying man, I’d be praying it wasn’t true.

  But I wasn’t a praying man. Another member of my company missing and I was going to find her. I didn’t have time to dwell on old legends and worry about Firsts.

  “Circle around, everyone,” I ordered, spinning an index finger in the air about me. It took a lot to force the words out. “It seems Hannah is missing.”

  Whispers, gasps, shakes of the head, and agape expressions met my words. I felt it as much as any of them. I continued. “I don’t want to believe it’s true. So let’s fan out and search the town. Check each bulwark and barricade, search each building. Be respectful but be thorough. Ask if anyone has seen her. Gather back here after you’re done. Let’s hope she passed out in some doorway and she’s all right.”

  The company disbanded in silence, canvassing the small town. It only took ten minutes.