Previously on Fang & Bone, Corea, Fang, and Erryl had encountered a ghoul, and Errylâs tough teaching style is creating some tension. However, the intrusion of a ghost quickly diverted their attention.
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It had become very clear to Garen that these tunnels were the work of the Necromancer. When he had emerged from the hidden church, he had wandered into an ancient crypt that ran below Gordhurst, but as he traced his way south through the damp stone tunnels, they gave way to raw earth and rock, bored through haste and with little support. It was as though a tremendous, frantic mole had hastily carved its way through the soil in an attempt to flee from something.
But Garen also knew that it was no mole, but rather the torn and broken fingers of ghouls with the meager accompaniment of old tools and boards. Chipped finger bones and broken, rusted equipment littered the path as he continued to move out. But all of that paled in comparison to the unearthly green, glowing tendrils of light that were weaving through dirt and stone, and even between the cobbles and blocks of the old catacombs from where he had emerged. Whisping trails of light that seeped from surfaces all around him.
Garen had seen someone in the barracks once who had been poisoned in a skirmish with a bandit. This must have been a few months back. Garen did not know him well, but his name was Thurmin. The man was carried back, limping, to the small barn that had been designated as the barracks for the town guard. He was placed on a cot, more a bale with a blanket on it. Garen had been ordered to summon the healer â âhealerâ being a charitable term for the old man who mostly tended to bleeding goats and dabbled in hedge -heals. When Garen had finally returned with Old Fenwyck, Thurminâs pale flesh had become latticed with dark purple, zigzagging marks. As Garen had overheard, it had been the poison spreading through the manâs veins. It was the first time Garen had heard that term, âveins.â That stuck with him.
Now, in this dank and darkened underground, the only light present came from similar marks, but as a bright and unnatural green. These green veins ran the length of the tunnel in a seemingly incoherent series of lines that would dart, split, and converge in ways that reminded him of early-winter fungus and the sickly threads stretched out along darkened soil, beneath rotting leaves, feeding on death. The veins he saw here and now would glow, casting a sickly light within the tunnel. But the veins would also pulse irregularly. For some strange reason, Garen was reminded of water lapping against the edge of a pond or puddle, something that felt like a pattern, but was not.
Garen knew it to be magic. He didnât know how he knew, but he did. He made a wide berth around the veins where he could and made sure he did not set a foot on any that snaked across the tunnel floor. He wasnât even sure if they could be stepped on, as they did not appear solid.
He had yet to see any actual ghouls since he made his way from the crazy old banditâs hovel, but he heard them, constantly, ahead. Down splitting paths carved into stone that led to stranger, darker spaces where even the unholy green tendrils would fail to cast light. Whenever he came to a cross tunnel, heâd steel himself for attack and then encounter nothing beyond his increasing unease. Heâd been following what he felt was the central tunnel, larger than the offshoots and with the greater concentration of green veins. But just because he hadnât encountered a ghoul yet only meant that an encounter was inevitable the further he crept.
After about an hour of his slow march, heâd come across something new. The sound of ghouls was rampant as he approached a hole in the earth above his head with the slightest cascade of sunlight spilling forth. He stepped into the pillar of light long enough to look to the green sky above him. He quickly stepped away, back into the dark, the moment he saw a moving shadow above.
This was the first tunnel to the surface he had encountered, but it was wholly useless to Garen as he could not reach the height of the hole and did not trust the soil not to collapse upon him even if he did manage to reach it. Perhaps the undead had been using it, but he didnât know how.
A sudden and violent crash of a ghoul to the ground before him explained how. The ghoul was followed by tumbling remains: feet, hands, and a head. Garen had taken several steps back, further into the darkness, and the ghoul who had landed on the ground began to shift. Garen watched it slowly rise into a sitting position, adjusting and resetting a dislocated shoulder with a sickening snap. It paused, almost dazed, but then began gathering the assemblage of remains that had tumbled down with it.
It had yet to notice Garen in the shadows. The boy had slowed his breathing as best he could, taking shallow breaths. He gripped his spear so hard he worried for a moment that he was going to snap it in half. But the spear held and Garen continued to observe the strange display.
The ghoul had gathered the assemblage of parts into a pile and began to rise to unsteady feet, clumsily reaching for them. The ghoulâs fingers were in no way nimble; instead it relied on stiffened arms with cupped hands. After a moment, it had completed its work and began to step lazily north, toward Garen. It hadnât seen him, at least as far as the boy could tell. Without hesitation, Garen thrust the spear forward with all of his strength, shoving the tip right into the face of the ghoul, just at the rotting nose, and pierced into the head. Garen rapidly shook the spear tip to scramble its brains and swiftly withdrew it with a steady hand, a ribbon of gore lingering from skull to spear until it finally broke and plopped. Within a moment, the ghoul collapsed, and the hands, feet, and the head it carried spilled onto the tunnel floor.
Garen did not recognize the person to which the head had once belonged. It was little comfort. He chose not to linger and pushed further into the tunnel, putting as much distance between himself and the earthen chute as he could.
âŠ
He could not be sure where he was relative to the surface. While Old Gordhurst was not a large town, it had seemed that way to him as a child in the time before fleeing from it. Childhood memories did little to give him a sense of where he was, and he was growing increasingly convinced that somehow he had become turned around with the tunnel. He knew it was impossible; heâd only been walking in one direction, and the curves of the tunnel did not seem particularly tight or looping, but he still worried that heâd become turned around somehow. Between the darkness, the echoes of the undead, and the unholy green trails, it was not surprising heâd begun second-guessing his route.
The few ghouls heâd encountered so far told him that this tunnel system had given the Necromancer an incredible amount of reach. Garen had only followed one path, and it seemed like it had gone on and on. Heâd not strayed into other major lanes, but if they existed, that meant this tangle was so much larger than he could comprehend. Even the path he was on seemed like it would not end anytime soon. Whole legions of the dead could be moved around, and if they were still digging, who knew how far the Necromancer could reach?
The grim realization of this all was this: they were likely beneath New Gordhurst even now, maybe for a long time.
The people of New Gordhurst would need to know about this; he needed to survive and get back to them, to warn them of what all this was â an invasion. As far as Garen could piece together, the tunnels would allow the ghouls to tirelessly spread further and further from Old Gordhurst and out into the surrounding lands, creating spaces where ghouls could emerge and harvest whatever it was the Necromancer needed. As Garen had gathered, these chutes were a tool for the harvest. Garen was not quite sure of what these green magical trails meant, but they were certainly a key part to all of this.
Soon, the boy came upon another chute dug into the earth above him, and like the last one, it was out of reach. The only thing that broke up the similarity between this chute and others was the presence of heavy, gnarled roots emerging from the tunnel wall, just past the hole.
In the center of the rough-hewn chamber were remains scattered beneath the chute and bathed in sickly light. Nothing together enough to function as a ghoul, but Garen gave it as wide a berth as he could as he worked his way toward the roots. He stopped before them and took them in. They were thick roots, some-nearly as thick as his waist in some cases, and about as thick as his arm in most. They had heavy, knuckle-like joints, and spreading off those roots were much thinner, finer ones, similarly gnarled and drawn like an uneven curtain. Many dangled from the soil and stone above like burlap strands.
He had a suspicion he knew where he was, looking at these strange roots.
He remembered his parents taking him and Corea to a large tree a couple of miles south of town, not long before the fall of Gordhurst. They had been quite upset those days, and as Garen remembered, the strange tree was a place of respite because his father loved plants and his mother loved the forest. These were not the same thing; he recalled his father constantly writing and drawing about plants, while his mother preferred to wander.
He wished heâd had his fatherâs writings and drawings. But such was the past. In the present, he knew these roots for what they were.
It was the Knuckle Tree. Garen remembered climbing the branches and being yelled at for climbing too high. He would hide among the giant roots at the surface and chase Corea around, who would shriek when he found her. Heâd heard his father say once that the tree was a stranger to the forest â older than most things in the area, but not of the land.Â
The trunk had been broad, wide, and flat, ringed by strange branches that rose up, angular and joint-like, to a broad canopy of reddish-brown leaves. Thinking about it now, the tree resembled a hand with far too many fingers rising, the tips exploding into large blotches of red, flat leaves. The exposed roots had resembled a hand digging into the earth itself, as though the tree was to be plucked from the ground.
Garen studied one of the thickest roots in the darkened tunnel as it tore from the soil at the makeshift wall and plunged back into the floor. He touched one of the angles and felt the folds, taking a moment to compare the root to the back of his hands. He folded and flexed his fingers, watching the skin on his knuckles wrinkle and stretch with his movements. This was the Knuckle Tree.
The smaller threads of roots that tendriled out from the larger ones began to shift, as though a breeze had suddenly caught them. But there was no airflow, let alone enough to make that so. Garen peered into the gaps and spaces between the roots to see there was a pocket of nothing â a seeming gap that dug into the wall of soil ringed by more roots. He began to spread away a curtain of finer threads with the tip of his spear, marveling at the delicate forms seemingly wrapping themselves along the point, beckoning him forward. From within the darkened space there was a glow. Not the unholy green heâd become accustomed to, but something purple and blue and red, shifting and fading and pulsing. Inviting.
Before he knew it, the larger roots enveloped him with soft creaks, pulling him into a hug, pulling him into the space between. The thinner threads clung to his body, doing their part.
He found himself released into the space, unharmed, staring at glowing threads that weaved along soil and the tree itself, the very edges of this space taking on pale green light, as though the tree were fighting the influence of the Necromancerâs magic. The air felt cool and smelled of good, fertile soil.
Garen did not understand why, but he turned his back to the glow and fell into it, and was nestled by roots, dirt, and rocks. He took a deep breath and felt safe for the first time in a long time. Maybe years, even. He leaned back, peering through the curtain into the larger tunnel. If these were his final moments, so be it. He thought of that family outing.
A severe crackle and whine stirred him from his moment of peace, and he shifted to look toward the source, which was just on the other side of the space where the remains of who knows who were sitting, rotting. More remains tumbled in from the earthen chute, and Garen kept very quiet, his eyes drawn to the vibrant green glow on a wall near the pile. It was popping and flashing little bursts of green, as loud cracks punctuated each one.
One of the tendrils of green began to widen, like a cut being ripped open, like pulling the hide from a pig. The jagged tearing of unholy magic did not seem to disturb the soil around it. Garen watched and listened to the cacophony of energy dance around the widening vein for a few seconds. He nearly yelped as the first limbs began to emerge from the tear â too many limbs.
This was not any undead form Garen had seen before. This abomination seemed to be an unsteady collage of several bodies. He kept quiet as he peered through the rooted curtain. What he saw was a torso that was too long, one chest stacked upon another, and two sets of elongated arms. The arms had too many joints, bending and flexing in spider-like motions The two uppermost arms ended with small hands that gave way to fingers, more fingers than should be on a hand, that were all very long and filed into extremely delicate points. The lower arms had broader hands that were more like claws, with fingers arranged like pincers, splayed outward.
The neck had also been stretched, the vertebrae exposed and reinforced by what seemed like leather and wires. It had to be two feet long. The head was still mostly flesh aside from what appeared to be a leather skullcap sewn directly into the skin and a myriad of lenses suspended over the eyes, each supported by a spindly array of thin metal tubes. As the creature emerged from the portal, Garen had watched the most delicate fingers on the left hand adjust the lenses.
The last of the feet were free from the portal â all six of them. The creatureâs waist had been ball-like in his roundness, but with three pairs of legs radiating outward, insect-like. The construct rocked and wobbled unsteadily, too tall for the tunnel, needing to lean forward. It planted its two bottom arms against the tunnel walls to steady itself as the top chest folded downward over the lower chest. It was leaning in to inspect the remains below the chute.
The vein that had been torn open had begun to suture itself shut, returning to the size it had been as Garen passed it earlier. Had Garen not witnessed this creature emerge, it would be hard to believe that vein had been stretched into some sort of doorway.
The creature had been composed of many body parts, but also the sheer amount of non-bodily components made Garen sick. Thread, leather, wood, copper⊠it seemed that the effort to graft these forms together was so great any number of other materials had been attached to the structure to reinforce it. It was a form so twisted that it had to be braced like a wagon, just to remain upright. Even the torsos were braced by a heavy cord and rod, along the spine, like a tension line. Garen could see this as the creature had been hunched over, still sorting through the parts.
Fuck, Garen mouthed to himself.
He was terrified, but somehow still thinking rationally. He was confident. He felt this small space, a space apart from the tunnel, seemingly breathe with him. Steady. He felt himself feeling one with the space as he watched this creature arrange parts in the dim light under the earthen chute.
Something had to be done. He couldnât suffer this threat to live, not when he knew this tunnel would be leading south, to his home. To his sister. Was this atrocity the Necromancer? Garen did not know, but he figured he would within moments. He tightened his grip on his spear and began to work his way to the curtain of roots. The space did not resist him or try to pull him back. His spear tip was the first thing to return into the tunnel proper, and then him, steady and silent.
This creature did not seem to notice him, and that gave him the courage to push forward. He would really only have one shot at this. There was no running. Not anymore.
The spider-like corpse shifted, a pair of delicate hands pulling at thread on its apparent hip, tightening the slack that supported the overlong torso. It returned to sorting.
Garen, too, felt a tension. He glanced back toward the roots and saw the thinnest roots were still attached to him in spots, even though he had moved away. He wasnât sure why, but he felt comforted by that.
And with that, he stepped further and struck. He slid his spear between the creatureâs back and the supporting tension rod, hooking the cord and pulling back as much as he could. The snagged line pulled and did not cut, extending the torso and pulling it back so far that it snapped at the joint where one chest met the other. All the while the strange construct flailed with the sharpest claws, lashing out fiolently and blindy as the two massive lower claws dug further into the tunnel walls to remain rooted in place. The uppermost part of the torso flopped over, the long neck whipping as the head chattered in anger.
Garen continued to pull. The upper chest began to tear from the lower one, and the construct now had enough of a presence of mind to begin lashing its arms toward Garen. The claws released from the wall and tried to steady the corso, fumbling at holding it upright and pulling against the boy. Garen felt himself pulled toward the mass of limbs, getting raked several times by the sharpened fingers that had been flailing at him. He felt a huge gash across his chest, even through the boiled leather armor, and felt blood pooling. He saw deep cuts on his arms.
He felt himself being pulled away from the ghoul, now. His grip remained firm on his spear and he put his full strength into it, plus more, as the roots began to entwine his body and pull with him.
And then it was done. A final jerk and the torso had snapped completely, along with the support rod. Garen fell back onto the damp tunnel floor, his arms burning with exhaustion and sticky from seeping blood. Without hesitation he climbed to his feet and ran toward the flailing, broken monstrosity. He could not dodge anything as he threw himself toward the skull. Garenâs body took every jagged slash and thrashing strike as he fell in range with the creatureâs head. The creatureâs neck whipped wildly as Garen approached, but he slammed his boot into it, holding it down and shoving the spear into the leather cap atop the crown of the skull. The leather split easily and there was no resistance as the skull cap had been removed. All motion instantly stopped as Garen stood over the horror, panting and bloodied. He collapsed onto his ass, breathing huge, gasping breaths, as he saw the spear remain firmly planted in the skull of the construct.Â
After a few moments he looked to see that there had been no roots clinging to him. He rose, his knees weak, and made his way back to the space where he had been out of sight, only to see the largest of the roots were dried out and the space was scarcely big enough to hide him.
All that remained of what he had experienced in the tree were flowing tendrils of purple and blue that were rapidly dimming as the unnatural green overtook them. And within a few seconds, the strange green veins were all that was left beyond rotting roots.
Garen felt a loss he could not quite explain.
He looked at his spear, lodged into the creature. The space was bathed in dim light from the corpse chute above. His spear called to him. There would be no going back. He thought of his sister and his parents. He thought of Donnel, Mr. Gorten, and the other folks of New Gordhurst. He wiped away what blood and mud from his body that he could. He collected his spear and marched back into darkness, back the way he came.
He made his peace as he followed the green veins to their source.
Previously on Fang & Bone, two brothers fight at a pyre meant for their mother, and their animosity spreads amongst the town of New Gordhurst, resulting in a riot.
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By Errylâs estimation, it had been about six hours on the road toward the old town of Gordhurst. This would have put them into the early afternoon, and judging by the light that came through the canopy of the gloomy forest, maybe about four hours before setting down for camp and to secure Fang, which was always a nerve-wracking proposition. Had they not been waylaid by the tremendous boar or curtailed by their clientâs unsure pace, they might have cleared more ground. Provided there were no further distractions, they could reach Gordhurst by early afternoon tomorrow. But as the forest and sky had gradually shifted into a sickly green aura, the further they walked, he also knew that they were moving ever closer to the Necromancerâs territory and that anything could go wrong.
And now, he could already sense Coreaâs question before she asked it.
âThe sky is getting more and more green. Is thatâŠ?â
Erryl, who was walking behind her in a half-stride, crossed his arms as he answered her. âYes, the influence of the Necromancer.â
âBut why green?â
He hadnât really considered the coloration of necromancy before.
âI suppose it is more sinister.â
âHuh?â
âI donât really know, magic manifests in many colors, and that is like asking me why the sky is blue, or grass is green. Maybe there is some reason, but I would not know. Best to ask a wizard.â
âDo you know any wizards?â
Erryl grunted. âOne.â
He saw Fang ahead, who had heard him and had been looking back. Fang grunted and shook his head. The Wolf would not care to elaborate, and that was just as fine for Erryl. It was apparent that Corea sensed something was off, and she chose not to pursue that subject further. But she was not exactly done, either.
âDo you know magic, Mr. Nick?â
Erryl pressed on, and as he nearly came upon her, hissed, urging her to pick up her pace.
âYes, a little. Practical. Reagentry.â
âWhat does that mean?âÂ
Erryl sighed. There was no end to this conversation in sight now, it seemed. He respected the girlâs innate curiosity and understood that this long walk with strangers was a great opportunity to learn more about the world, but he was never good with kids.
âPractical magic is magic that comes from the physical, such as reagents. Very few people can perform magic without a tangible, material focus. Usually, we use alchemy for that. Nearly anyone, with the right understanding, can perform feats of magic. But those who donât need to labor at it are the truly powerful ones.â
The child was quiet for a moment, apparently taking in what he had said. He awaited her next question, but it did not come as quickly as he thought. Curious.
âWhy do you ask, girl?â
Corea was still silent, trying to figure out what she wanted to say. Erryl gave her time, but continued to hiss as her pace faltered periodically. Ahead, Fang was still tuned into the surrounding forest, wary of scent, sound, or motion. Erryl wasnât sure if Fang was aware his hackles were up, just above the lowered cloak where his substantial neck met his shoulders. In a way, that also made Erryl wary, and he continued to scout the area as he waited for Corea to reply.
âHow do you know someone has a natural gift for magic?â
Erryl pondered the question, not quite sure what she was getting at. He responded as best he could with his own limited understanding.
âTo be honest, there are a myriad of possible answers, but those individuals donât tend to reveal much of themselves for various reasons. I donât really know much about it myself. I guess a certain sensitivity and awareness might be a sign? I only know how to tap into it, but I imagine for someone with a gift, it is like being submerged in it. Iâd imagine it could be a sensory nightmare. Overwhelming.â
Erryl pulled out a bit of saltpork from a pocket and took a bite, thinking further. Corea was quiet.
âTake, for example, here, these woods. I am positive these woods are awash in all sorts of foul magics. Itâll only grow worse as we reach the nexus of the Necromancerâs influence.â Coreaâs pace had fallen back, and he had moved up next to her, leaning toward her, and gesturing ahead. âOur lupine friend ahead, he is of magic, and I am sure he senses something. The hackles there, on the back of his neck â they are raised. Born of a curse, I am sure he is sensitive to whatever may be awash in these woods. Weâd be wise to heed his word if he notices anything.â
He looked toward Corea, smiling slightly, but noticed a slightly peaked pallor about the girl. As she stumbled, he caught her with his arm, holding up her weight on unsteady feet. Ahead, Fang had already stopped, staring directly at her, sword drawn and planted firmly in the dirt path. Erryl looked to the Wolf.
âFang?â
âFelt a wash of necromancy. She did too.â
Erryl glanced down at Corea, who appeared dazed. He knelt and held her as steady as he could, but whatever Fang had noticed had clearly hit her unexpectedly. Another wrinkle in this tapestry, it seemed.
âCorea, how are you? What do you feel?â
âDizzy.â
âSit, please.âÂ
Erryl guided her to the ground, as Fang watched from a distance. When she was sitting, Erryl rubbed her back between the shoulder blades. It was something heâd picked up on whenever Flint had an uneasy stomach. Corea groaned a bit, but her swaying began to stop, and soon she sat cross-legged, hunched over, breathing deeply. Fang had now approached and sat across from her, bastard sword across his lap, eyeing her with an intensity that bordered on suspicion.
Erryl tore a strip of the saltpork and nudged it toward her. She took it and ate it, still staring toward the earth.
âTell us what happened,â Erryl asked as gently as he could muster.
âŠ
She told them everything.
As Erryl took in her descriptions of colors and a shifting world, he marveled at what he envisioned. He also grew sour with envy. He craved knowledge and experience, and now there was something he might never be able to investigate for himself. Instead, this unique gift fell upon this child. He wallowed in the frustration, briefly, but let it wash over him, seeing her now so thoroughly unnerved by these past couple of hours. For her, it might be a burden; she may not want it, and in that there was a necessary sympathy for her.
He could never write the whole of existence and its every facet in a book, as much as he had been trying to with his countless journals. Heâd be okay with that one day. But for now, he let the jealousy wither as he looked at young Corea.
âAnd you never knew?â he asked.
Corea shook her head. âIt reminded me of dreams, but I donât know if those count.â
âI am sure they do,â he said. âDreams carry a lot of meaning. Some say theyâre magic in purest form.â
Fang huffed. Erryl ignored it.
He watched Corea sip from a waterskin. She glanced nervously at Fang, who had now repositioned slightly to get a look at the road ahead, but not so much that he could not engage the others in conversation, of which he had done little so far, given the titanic revelation that had occurred.
âSo, nobody knew? Your brother, grandmother, and Mr. Gorten didnât know? Didnât say anything?â
âI knew,â Fang added.
Erryl cast a sharp glance at Fang. âCome again?â
âI knew. Smelled magic on her at the stable. On the coin. Coin was rank with her will.â
Eyll was dumbfounded, looking at the Wolf, so casually sitting on the road, looking into the distance.
âAnd you chose not to tell me? Tell her?â
Fang looked back at Erryl and then to Corea. Her eyes were wide, and she was silent. He nodded. âI donât spill secrets people likely donât know they have.â
Erryl pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes, brow furrowed in contempt. âGodsdamn â ugh. Okay, I get it. Not happy about not having this information on hand, but I can understand why you said nothing. Now is the time for you to talk, then.â He was silent for a moment, and then added, âBy the by⊠do you smell anything on me?â
âAle and desperation.â
âFuck you,â Erryl chuckled.
Corea still had her eyes locked on Fang and didnât so much as smirk. They all sat in silence, and it was Fang who eventually broke the silence, speaking directly to her.
âThis magic, it will hit like a sack of flour.â He hit his chest with an open palm, which made a meaty thump. âIt can knock you down.â
He rubbed the hackles at the back of his neck, letting his digital pads rustle through the coarse fur. âYou and I feel the same thing. You feel it now, donât you?â
Corea nodded.
âItâs like smelling or hearing. A sense. You can use that. But it canât be knocking you on your ass, either. Itâs like taking a whiff of something foul.â
âHow do I get better at resisting it?â
Fang was silent for a moment, contemplating. His reply was simple: âDonât know. Be less small.â
Coreaâs brow furrowed, and she leaned toward him, annoyed. âWhat?â
âIâm hundreds of pounds. Not much knocks me over.â
âIâm just a child.â
âChildren grow. Youâre strong. You can be stronger.â
âI suppose it is just another thing you will need to work on as we go,â Erryl added, âUnless?â
Coreaâs eyes darted between them. Erryl seemed curious while Fang was silent and determined.
âNo,â was all Fang said.
âBut you did have a way to contact him, yes?â
Fang said nothing and rose to his feet, walking down the path. Erryl rose to his feet and extended his hand to Corea, who took it.Â
âI suppose that is an issue for another time,â
He helped her up.
âWhat is?â she asked.
âItâs an issue for another time,â Erryl said flatly.
âŠ
Erryl had been surprised by the lack of the undead thus far. Despite the expanse of green that hung over the sky and colored the world in a sickly olive haze, most obstacles had been of the natural world. While not questioning the power of the Necromancer, having seen their putrid work a day earlier, the general feeling Erryl carried was one of suspicion. Not seeing the roving dead, especially in such demarcated territory, meant there was something at play that he did not know. And Erryl did not like not knowing something. It was truly the most abject sensation he could think of.
Fang and now Corea, in a surprise turn, however, felt it. They felt the presence of necromantic magic beyond the immediate, and it had a clear effect on them both. All Erryl could do was rely on them for any signs of the dead, he assumed, outside of his own not unimpressive natural senses and awareness. But that was nothing compared to magic and bitter bites of envy nipped at the back of his mind.
As he came to terms with his limitations and the slights that fate had conspired against him, Fangâs sudden stopping and sniffing gave the trio pause.
âSmell the dead. Hear movement.â The Wolf glanced back at them. âOne moving. Another not,â he added.
âLead the way,â Erryl gestured with his hand.Â
Fang lowered his body and slowed his gait, letting his senses guide him. Erryl and Corea followed as silently as they could off the road that led toward the old town. After a couple of minutes, they found a small clearing between trees where they came upon a ghoul that was tearing pieces from a corpse. Both corpses, the moving and the still, wore the cobbled-together look of guardsmen from New Gordhurst.Â
Erryl leaned toward Corea and whispered to her. âDo you recognize them?â
Corea squinted and was silent for a moment. She nodded. âThe one being⊠taken apart. That was Maervin. He was an ass to me, butâŠâ
Erryl placed a hand on her shoulder. âListen. This is your chance to bring one down. Weâll be here to make sure you do not get hurt. Wonât we, friend?â
Erryl nodded toward Fang, and Corea looked at the Wolf, who nodded, eyes still locked on the grim scene. He said nothing.
âYou need to destroy the brains of these things. Iâll leave it to you to decide how youâll do this. Go, now. Before it senses us.â
Corea looked Erryl up and down, and he stared back at her, his brow furrowed. He would say no more. It was on her, now. And, to her credit, she drew the largest blade she had â the curved one â and began to step slowly into the small clearing. Erryl crept closer to Fang as he watched.
âBe ready on a momentâs notice. Hopefully, she has some skill.â
Fang replied, âIâm always ready,â with a flattened intonation, clearly engrossed in the unfolding scene.
The ghoul pulling Maervinâs head from his body was unexpected, and the brutality of it caused the poor girl to yelp as soon as she saw it. Erryl scratched nervously at an eyebrow as he watched her lose the element of surprise. Sheâd need to think on her feet, now, provided she was not too horrified by seeing a partial spine trailing beneath the dead manâs head like some grotesque tadpole tail.
Corea had stopped moving and planted her feet apart, for stability, and raised the blade before her, with both hands wrapped around the handle. Erryl would have preferred sheâd gone to knock the ghoul down, but stable footing was also a valid choice â just not what heâd have done in this instance.
The ghoul, now, had begun to turn to her, still clutching the head of Maervin. Corea maintained her footing for only a moment before stepping back and dropping the blade, overwhelmed with apparent, sudden terror.
âShit,â Erryl breathed.
He stood up, hesitant to move forward. She could still salvage this.
âPick up the blade, Corea, now!â
But she didnât move beyond fearful tremors, and Erryl grunted, sweeping in as the ghoul approached the child. She did not fall back, and she made no noise, only staring at the abomination that was sure to strike her if she did nothing.
As the ghoulâs free arm rose, Erryl watched, hoping she would do something. He was desperate for it, even as he cleared the distance. But still, nothing from her. And as the ghoul began to bring its horrid hand upon her, Erryl swept in, rapier drawn, piercing the left eye socket and flicking the point within the cavity until the ghoul dropped the severed head and finally collapsed.
It was only then that Corea moved, and it was to run to Fang, who seemed rather struck by her willingness to come to him. She hid behind his massive form and began to cry. The Wolf stared blankly at Erryl as the girl buried her face into his furry arm.
Erryl flicked the blade with a fluid swish and slid it back into his scabbard. He let out a sigh and looked at the two bodies. He turned to her, still cowering behind the Wolf.
âYouâll never survive at this rate,â he grumbled. âTheyâre abominations. Dead flesh as puppets. You destroy them, or they destroy you, Corea.â
He stepped closer to Corea, who was still behind a crouched Fang. Fangâs eyes were wide, and his expression was one of utter bewilderment, unsure of what to do.
Erryl raised his voice as he approached. âYou canât let fear stop you. You can be afraid, but-â
âIâm not scared!â
Erryl paused, shocked at the outburst and the childishness of it all. âOf course you were afraid, girl! Donât lie and say you were not! I wonât play games with you, and Fang much less, so. You need to grow up.â
âErryl.â Fang shook his head. Had he gone soft?
âI thought youâd be on my side!â Erryl said with sudden exasperation.
Corea began sobbing. Erryl rolled his eyes and stepped back to the corpses, furious. He stared at the slain ghoul.
âI wasnât afraid,â she continued. âItâs just that it was Mr. Donnel and he was always nice to me and GarenâŠâÂ
Erryl took in the thin face of what seemed like any other hardscrabble peasant that lived in isolation. A twinge of recognition tugged at the back of his mind, of similar folk heâd known. He cut that from his mind, turning back to her. By now, Fang had risen to his feet and stepped apart from her, clearly unsure of what his role was here.
âThat could just as easily have been your brother, you know?â Erryl fumed. âYou forced yourself into our task, and we are not nursemaids. In the moment it is to destory or to be destroyed. Do you understand?â
âI do.â
âDo you? If this is how you react to seeing a friendâs face on a rotting shambler, I am terrified to know what will happen should we find young Garen in such a state.â
âEnough!â Fang barked. It was so loud it likely carried a mile in all directions, even through the trees.
âExcuse me, Wolf?â
âShe knows. She knows, Barber.â
âIâm not going to â you didnât want her with us either!â Erryl yelled, annoyed.
Fang was silent for a moment, contemplating. Corea had stood quietly, her gaze averted from them both. Eryll waited for some sort of reply.
âFlint.â Fangâs voice was a soft growl, as soft has he could likely muster.
Erryl had not expected that. He took a sudden breath, like he had forgotten how to breathe on his own and had to course-correct.
âDonât you fucking dare, Wolf.â
Fang did not change his posture. He looked at Erryl, adding, âA lot of loss for one so small. Iâve heard you in the small hours. You carry him. Sheâs carrying her own.â
Erryl was quiet for a moment. He looked at her, one day to be a woman, only now no more than a handful of years into her adolescence. He noticed she had stopped crying, but she couldnât bear to look at him. Now, in turn, he felt a sudden embarrassment in being perceived by her. Heâd lost Flint as a young man and had found no other since. Heâd suffered his loss and did not permit the possibility of more. There was no sign of her losses coming to an end in the foreseeable future.
Fang stomped off toward a tree to lean against it. He looked back to Corea for a moment as he spoke. âSheâll grow. But growing up is hard to do. We donât need to make it harder.â
The fucking audacity of the beast, Erryl thought. âI hate it when youâre right,â he grunted.
âMust be tough on you, then. What with me right all the time?â Fang muttered.Â
With that, Fang had already caught a scent and began peering around, back on the alert. That, of course, left Erryl to the sensitive task ahead. Unfavorable and awkward. He plucked her blade from the earth and approached her. She was still looking anywhere but in his direction.
He turned the blade to her, handle-first. He did not say anything. She drew it from him and tucked it into her wooden scabbard. She looked at him for a moment, still visibly upset, which was to be expected. But her countenance changed to one of confusion and fear as she looked past him.
âCorea?â
She said nothing at first, still staring at something, and growing increasingly uneasy. Erryl glanced back over his shoulder but nothing had caught his eye. Finally, she spoke.
âDo you see that girl?â she asked.
Erryl turned around, trying to trace the point where she had been gazing, but saw nothing but trees. âWhat girl?â He was feeling uneasy.
âThe one about my age⊠looking there, at the body of Mr. Donnel.â
Fang had returned to the clearing, and Erryl noticed the Wolfâs hackles extended, more so than they had been in the last hour. The Wolf began to stare in the same direction, like a farm hound aware of something in the area. Erryl looked up and took in the sickly green sky just through the canopy. The veil is thin, he mused.
With a practiced, calm pace, he knelt and removed his bag, opening it and fishing through for the supplies he needed. After a few moments, he was smearing a poultice made of key herbs and his own blood around a glass lens. He projected his desire to see all the while. When he felt a pop in his head, he took the lens and peered in the direction that Corea had been staring this whole time.
Corea was right about there being a girl about her age. She had been inspecting the remains, not paying attention to the trio before her. Fang had begun growling, not seeing something, but knowing something was present. Corea was silent as the grave.
âIs one of you going to talk to me?â the ghost asked.
Previously on Fang & Bone, Fang, Erryl, and Corea encountered a massive boar and were able to take it down. Back in New Gordhurst, Nathan Gorten and Corrigan Gorval dug up past family trauma to the benefit of neither man. Eghart, meanwhile, is waiting on a silver coating for his knuckledusters.
_____
Nathan Gorten had not really visited his mother much over the past few years, even though she lived in the shack behind his inn. Circumstances within the family had driven everyone apart by necessity, and for the past nine or so years, her mind had clouded so much that she stopped recognizing him when he did show up. What was once there in Lavinia Gorten, formerly Gorval, before the collapse of the family, was a faint echo, and she became a stranger to him in her final years.
Though Nathan knew that to be a lie. He had become a stranger. Pawned her off onto her grandchildren, and he poured his time into a rarely-used inn, always second-guessing and undermining his brother. Doing what he could to mitigate the damage of the bastard who ruined everything. Now, as he saw her frail, pale corpse beneath piles of blankets, he knew he had failed her. The whole family had, except for Corea and Garen, who were now off â Garen missing, Corea in the shadow of two roadmen. It was only now, truly confronted with the loss, that he actually felt it and realized he could have been more present. But all that he could do now was stare silently at the corpse of Lavinia Gorten, formerly Gorval, and feel heartsick and angry at the world she had left him to.
A light knock at the shackâs door frame pulled him out of the developing mood, and he turned back to see Young Kent, his head bowed low, a hat in hand. The young man was always Young Kent â he was some distant relation, as were many in the town â and it did not seem necessary to know much more about him beyond that, and that he once tried to stretch himself by tying himself to a tree and a goat as a child.
âThe pyre is ready, sir. Iâm â Iâm so sorry for your loss.â
Nathan said nothing. He bent over and began to peel the layers of blankets and sheets from her body. When he had gotten to the last remaining layer, he paused, staring at how slight her frame had truly been, and how small she was. Had she always been that small?
Of the blankets, he picked the most colorful one he could find â he felt it had some significance, but he could not recall much about it beyond some vague notion of it being attached to the faintest of childhood memories. He did not remember much of childhood, but the blanket, the color of a light rose with yellow ivy stitching, seemed appropriate. He thought she would have liked it. She must have. He was sad; he didnât really know.
âDid you need help with her, Mr. Gorten?â
Again, Nathan was silent and began wrapping her into a bundle. He tucked in some wildflowers between her sheet and the blanket before wrapping her from head to toe and binding her with heavy twine. As he stood back, he took in the delicate shape and suddenly thought of a child â she was slight enough.
âThe children should be here for this,â he whispered.
âSir?â
âNothing. Go to the pyre and prepare to light it.â
âSir.â
And with that, Nathan was alone, kneeling before his motherâs body, wrapped in some blanket he barely remembered, but felt good about â he thought. It would need to be enough. He gently lifted her from the bed where she had spent her final years. She was so light, and yet the shape of her body in the straw mattress was so deep. He quickly rose to his feet and turned away, knowing that had he looked a second longer, he would have begun to cry. Tears were for the pyre. Tears were for the send-off.
âŠ
Sandval had said the silver coating needed time to cool over the knuckles, and Eghart, eager to commence the hunt, waited with the intensity of a hungry child over the evening soup pot. He paced back and forth for a while in front of the forge until Sandval told him to leave â not asked â told. Eghart could have snapped the manâs fucking neck, easily, but that was obviously a rushed judgment that would have been more trouble than it was worth.
Merely an intrusive thought, of which Eghart rarely acted upon anymore. Heâd grown more sensitive to these sorts of things over the years, since he had a position of authority. It wasnât that he was softening himself; he learned to protect himself from his own mind, most of the time. He knew he was a sick man â it was something heâd always been aware of â and it probably also explained why he felt no pain. The frustration and anger present in his fatherâs fist at being unable to correct the boy. Well, he did not feel most pain. So when the bad thoughts came along, the really risky ones, heâd go to the widow, Elspeth. Heâd pay her with food or copper for her children, and she would hurt him in the only way anyone could. A secret shame he discovered in childhood, when a farmhand cornered him.
Heâd considered visiting her as he waited for his commission to be released into his custody, but thought better of it. He was still running on rage and desire, eager to get to the Wolf, and he wanted to be ready at a momentâs notice. Needing to dress again was an entirely avoidable delay.
Still waiting for his prize, he took to the center of town where the main roads met, and watched a pyre being erected. The turnout was surprising, with even Elspeth and her children in attendance. He wondered for a moment what had drawn so many. Then he remembered the old woman and ran as quickly as he could to the Mayorâs home. The spark could be drawn at any moment, and Gorval would take back all of the nice things he said if Eghart did not see to his needs.
âŠ
As Nathan Gorten emerged onto the road from behind the inn, the sound of a Sanaran mandolin began to play. At first, it was a few hesitant plucks, but after a few moments, a melody began to wring out in the early-afternoon silence. Nathan saw ahead that Kanaeth Gaer stood at the corner of the crossroad, opposite the unlit pyre, playing the tune. Kanaethâs mandolin was one of the few things the man had absconded with in the razing of Gordhurst, and it meant a great deal now for Nathan to see it out and about. Soon enough, as Nathan took slow steps down the lane toward the pyre, he recognized the tune of âThe Light in the Shadowsâ and faltered a bit. Heâd felt mostly in a daze since he left the shack, and now, aware of where he was, with his motherâs body in his arms, saw that many of the folk he knew were out and observing silently.
Nathan did not move for a while, just listening to Kanaeth play the tune. He felt something deep and indescribable in the moment, like he had to take this moment for her. On one of his rare visits, she had been mostly gone, completely frail, confused, and scared; a stranger he could not really comfort. But he recalled her humming the same tune, if only briefly. And here it was, playing in the silent town where people had gathered. When Kanaeth stopped, Nathan nodded to him in silence and continued to walk to the pyre. Kanaeth picked up the tune again â seemingly more confident than he had been moments before.
Eventually, the slow walk ended, and Nathan stood before the pyre, a raised bed of wood surrounded by stacked and laticed kindling. He laid the bundle that held his motherâs remains with great care on the bed and stepped away. He stood in silence, contemplating the moment as best he could, but a murmur of the locals drew his attention behind him, and to his anger, his brother, Corrigan, limped in with such an intensity that Nathan was shocked he could move so quickly. Shocking him even further was the haymaker that connected with his jaw, thrown by the Mayor of New Gordhurst.
âYou have no right!â Corrigan shouted. As Nathan began to recover, Corrigan took another wild swing at his brotherâs face, and Nathan fell against the pyre. âYou have no right!â
Nathan rubbed at his jaw and stared his brother in the face. Corriganâs eyes were red and watery, and his skin ruddy between bruises and fury. The man still had not cleaned himself up from their last moments together that morning. Corrigan pulled a fist back, ready to throw another haymaker. Nathan rolled against the pyre to his left. Corriganâs first slammed into some of the kindling, snapping it, and Nathan recovered and took his own swing. But as soon as he threw his fist forward, The Egg was upon him, catching him by the wrist and squeezing it with all his might. Nathan felt like his bones were just about to crack and violently yanked his arm back, looking at the towering, pale man who had loosened his grip almost as fast as he had tightened it. His face was passive, except his eyes, which looked almost bored or distracted. Corrigan propelled himself from the pyre and tackled Nathan to the ground, grabbing him by his tunic and shaking him violently, screaming into his face.
âNo right! She is my mother, too!â
At that, the murmurs and whispers of observers picked up. Not everyone knew about the family strife. Some did, but for most, all of this had been kept secret for decades. For many, this explained much. Nathan put his palm over the center of his brotherâs chest and stiffened his arm, pushing him back a bit, and stared directly into furious eyes.
âNow? You want to do this now?â he asked.
âYou will not burn her!â
Corrigan continued to press his weight onto Nathanâs arm, and the strain was beginning to hurt.
âSheâs not just some carcass!â
Nathan had had enough. He released the tension in his arm, and gravity pulled Corriganâs face close enough so that Nathan swung his forehead directly into his nose, breaking it and dazing himself. The two men rolled from one another onto their backs in the dirt and grass, breathing hard, dazed in different ways and yet united in grief. Nathan glanced around, and most of the small crowd had dissipated some distance, leaving only The Egg nearby, along with Selwick and Ewan, two of the town guards. They stood still, waiting for their orders from either the Mayor or The Egg. But it seemed The Egg merely observed in a detached way, not immediately concerned with Corriganâs well-being. The fat, pale bastard was certainly showing loyalty, Nathan mused.
Corrigan rolled to his side, toward Nathan, just as Nathan did the same toward Corrigan. They locked eyes with one another, both grounded, mourning, and exhausted.
âDonât do this. Donât burn her.â
âWe have to burn bodies now. We have to burn them because of you, Corr.â
âDonâtâŠâ
âI donât want to see her eyes, or nose, or teeth in some grotesquery, Corr. Nothing is sacred to that monster, and you know it. Weâre parts. Weâre all just parts. And youâre fine with that?â Nathan spat on the ground, but he was so tired that there was little distance, and most of it ran down his chin. It didnât matter. He continued, âAre you comfortable with that monster defiling your motherâs memory? Is this part of some agreement?â
Corrigan said nothing, simply seething at Nathan
Nathan continued, his own eyes now red and watery, the floodgates open before the pyre. Not quite at the time heâd have chosen, but it could not be avoided.
âWhy?â Nathan asked. âWhat hold does that fiend have on you? Youâre a godsdamned thrall!â His voice was cracking.
Nathan had remembered the crowd, and the murmuring had picked up again, now, many in agreement. âWhat is keeping you keeping us here? You can send The Egg to clear a path. Heâs strong, we all know this. He could actually be useful to us, but you will not do it.âÂ
Nathan pulled himself off the dirt and awkwardly got to his feet. Corrigan continued to lie on the ground, continuing to glare. âWhat hold is on you?â
There was louder agreement from the gatherers now. The Egg stood passively, merely balling his fists. His guardsmen shifted awkwardly. The crowd continued to jeer and comment, but Nathan had grown oblivious to it, simply looking down upon his brother, who in return simply stared back.
When Corrigan threw his hand up and outward, The Egg stopped forward to help his patron up from the floor. Corriganâs heft was almost a triviality to The Egg, who did not seem to struggle in bringing the man to his feet. Corrigan patted dust off his already disheveled morning coat and then felt at his nose, wincing in pain and gingerly dabbing for blood with pudgy fingertips. He looked back at his brother.
âYou will not burn her body, Innkeeper. I forbid it in my authority as Mayor of this town, and then the man who led us from the destruction of our old home. You may also be my brother by blood, but you are not in spirit.âÂ
Corrigan pulled out an already bloodstained handkerchief from a pocket and gently dabbed at his upper lip. He inspected the blood on the stained white silk for a moment and then crumpled it, throwing it to the ground between the two men. The Egg was watching this display with a curiosity that made Nathan nervous.
Corrigan looked back at Nathan, looking him over before locking eyes with him. He shook his head as he spoke to The Egg.Â
âIf he makes a move to light that pyre, kill him.â
The Egg nodded, but his attention was suddenly divided now, as the crowd of onlookers seemingly exploded. Nathan watched the blank face of the giant man suddenly furrow his brow in apparent surprise and caution. Several people in the crowd, Kenaeth and Young Kent included, began to press toward the Mayorâs position. Even the widow, Elspeth, wove herself into the crowd, her children nowhere in sight. Nathan felt a surge of animosity ripple out and grew fearful of what it could become. He raised his arms, spreading them out, trying to make himself a wall.
âPlease, this is a family quarrel, Iâll handle it.â
But the plea fell on deaf ears. Young Kent, stupid, kind, Young Kent, shoved Ewan, the smaller of the guardsmen. Before anyone in the crowd could take in what had happened, Young Kent was crumpled on the ground, bleeding from his ears, eyes, and nose, as the Egg stood over him, his arms stretched out wide and his palms open and flat, with dabs of blood splashed across them.
The crowd suddenly grew silent, except for a lone scream from a woman Nathan couldnât identify as everyone saw the young man on the ground. Kenaeth, his mandolin still in hand, knelt beside Young Kent.
âKentâs⊠Kent is dead.â
Kenaeth looked up at The Egg, who had lowered his arms. The Egg was staring back at Young Kentâs body, his head tilted slightly, seemingly impressed by the suddenness of his strike â like he had done something admirable or surprising and not something utterly terrifying.
âYou killed him.â Kanaeth rose to his feet.
âStop,â Nathan pleaded. âDonâtâŠâ
But deaf ears again, when it mattered most. Kanaeth got into the Eggâs face with an accusatory finger. The Egg grabbed the entirety of Kanaethâs hand within his own and quickly squeezed. The sound of shattering bone was audible to all. Kanaeth fell to his knees, dropping his mandolin, howling. He would never play again.
The stunned silence gave way to yelling, screaming, and thrashing as the crowd surged toward the guardsmen. The Egg grabbed Corrigan, lifting him over his shoulder as the man thrashed his protests. The Egg threw his bulk through the crowd with no concern for them. Nathan heard one manâs leg break when The Egg trampled right over it. The guardsmen followed along, shoving away people and bloodying their noses and battering their bodies. Nathan stood at the pyre in shock, devastated at what had occurred. He watched his brother, slung over the shoulder of the pale giant, ineffectually beat at his protector. He kept glaring at Nathan, his eyes wide.
The crowd surged around the escapees, twentyfold and two three now, as Nathan watched helplessly. The crackle of a nearby torch, for the ceremony, snapped him out of his stupor. He glanced at it and back to Corrigan, who was still staring through the surging township.
Nathan plucked the torch and shoved the flame directly into the kindling. He watched the woodsmoke give way to small flames that continued to envelop the space. He looked back at the crowd following the guardsmen to the mayoral house.
There was no sign of the bandits that Fang and Erryl were convinced were lurking in the woods. It wasnât that Corea did not believe them, but rather that with every inspection she made of the treeline, she saw nothing but trees, shrubs, and the errant shuffling of small animals. She did not know what they saw, and as of now, she couldnât ask them. Fang was on the alert, and she watched his ears turn and wiggle at sounds she could not hear. Erryl forced a quickened pace, pushing Corea into a faster stride that was beginning to get exhausting, nearly as exhausting as the barberâs continued utterance of âmove.â
Whenever she asked for clues as to what she should watch for, the reply was always the same from Erryl â either âmoveâ or âhush.â She dared not call out to Fang, yards ahead, for fear of making noise. Both of her guardians moved near silently, and she had quickly decided that should be her approach as well, outside of frustrated whispers that were met with, again, âmoveâ or âhush.â
They had been teaching her things all day, for hours now, but now they werenât, and it frustrated her. As she walked, she would periodically glance at her feet and stare at the toes of her boots as they swept over the roughshod path, conscious more than ever of her youth. She was small and something to be protected, to be watched over like a small child, and she hated it. She understood it, but she did not like it.
The awareness of the shift from contributor to burden made her face feel hot, and she clenched her fists so hard that her nails were on the cusp of breaking the skin of her palm. Realizing how tightly she had been clenching at nothing, she loosened up and flexed her fingers, trying not to let the annoyance and shame get the better of her. She wouldnât be a burden, she decided. She was a hard worker at home. She could be a hard worker here. Soon the woods would clear, and theyâd enter the field that surrounded the outskirts of Gordhurst. There would be less cover for all parties, which was probably worse than the equal cover of the woods. This was her chance to learn.
And with that, her focus shifted to the treeline surrounding the old road. She would glance between the trees into the darkened woods, despite the day. She took in the strange greenish tinge of the sky, subtle, but it had been growing more obvious as they walked along the road through the cracks of the canopy. She tried to hear beyond the sound of her steps, beyond the immediate area. She tried to discern scents. She did everything she could think of to be more aware of the woods, to reach out beyond the immediate. She was met with nothing beyond the immediate. She began to clench her fists again. She unclenched them, exhaling.
âMove,â Erryl whispered.
She began to clench her fists again. She released them, again. She picked up her pace and whispered back.
âHow do I do what you do?â she asked.
Erryl was silent for a moment or two. Then he spoke.
âSurgery or swordplay?â
âSurvive. See what you and him see.â She pointed to Fang up ahead.
âDo this for a while. My lupine companion and I have nearly a half-century of experience between us.â Erryl patted her on the head. âItâs time that hones the instincts.â
Corea said nothing, but felt a little comfort at the feeling of his hand on her head.
âNow, hush and move,â he added, spoiling the moment.
Corea sighed and picked up her pace, yet again.
âŠ
Despite what Erryl had said, Corea was still seeking to pick up on little things in the world around her, trying to hone her senses for what was sure to be a trial within the old town â Trying to build up those âinstinctsâ he had mentioned. It would take time, but surely there was some practice too, wasnât there? It wasnât just a passive experience; it was something that had to be honed to some degree. It had to be.
The repetition, the pace, and the focus began to come together, and before she knew it, something seemed different. A strange awareness that wasnât necessarily of her worldly senses. She would find it impossible to describe in the years since. It was like there was a rhythm of the world, and errant notes would pique her attention, and sheâd feel something, experience something like color in her head, though she could not quite understand what any of those colors meant.
But there was a familiarity. There was a blood-deep feeling about it all that she could not quite articulate..
There were blues and greens, which seemed to be the most common colors she saw, but sudden flashes of other, warmer colors would burst into subtle pops and sparks, vibrating and humming, fading in and out of the worldly rhythm. As she focused and fell into experiencing this strange layer to her experience, she found herself conscious of two worlds. She saw the road and her werewolf guardian ahead. But there was another world of color over it. It was like when she applied pressure to her closed eyes in the darkness of night when she was tired; the kind of sparks that danced in her vision after. But also not quite that, as those faded after a time. This experience persisted and only grew as she focused on it. It was like each of her eyes saw something else. She felt dizzy trying to make sense of it all, but not physically so.
This wasnât entirely a new sensation, either. Sheâd been recognizing this feeling for a while now, before, in other moments, back home, back during chores, or spending time with Garen. Sheâd experience spells of rhythmic lights in the night, but this was different. This felt like something deliberate and something she was making happen.
She pushed further, trying to comprehend both worlds simultaneously. As she saw green and blue dancing, shimmering, and pulsing, she too saw Erryl to her left, looking at her with concern. As she heard the rhythm of the world, she also heard him speak.Â
âYour nose is bleeding.â
She felt the sensation of the blood from her nostrils and over her top lip. She saw blues and greens give way to warmer hues, to yellows, golds, and oranges, and until bursts of red violently and continually tore at her vision. Her ears popped with discordant, droning sounds. She felt herself wobble and stared at the road, unsure whether the world was shaking or it was her.
Seconds later, there was a roar. She stood unsteadily and watched Fang draw his sword and heard the cracking of branches and the violent uprooting of earth and brush. An ear-piercing squeal tore through the woods, then, and the world of color dropped from her vision, as though someone had just simply pulled it away. In one moment, her altered mind snapped back into a violent, bitter reality. She felt nausea wash over her as a giant boar erupted from the tree line and dashed past the Wolf as his heavy sword swing missed it.
âDamn! Corea, hide!â
Erryl dashed past, shoving her body toward the treeline to her right, but she couldnât move; the world still rocked, and she was having trouble getting a sense of herself. As the Barber pushed toward the boar, he turned his gaze back to her to yell, again, âHide!â
She shook her head, trying to jostle away whatever bewitchment clouded her mind, and with an immediate burst of strength threw herself toward a large tree off the side of the old road. She pressed herself against it and slid down,, shrinking into the ferns that grew at the base of the tree. She still felt dizzy, and she swore at herself. She focused through the rocking sensation as best she could on the Barber and the Wolf. Erryl seemingly danced around the boar, looking for an opportune moment. The beast, dwarfing even Fang, the Wolf had given up his sword for his fists.Â
At shoulder height, the boar looked to be a head shorter than the werewolf, but with the long, muscular frame of a swine â all front-heavy. Sheâd never seen such a large creature in her life, and suddenly she felt very scared. Hunters had told stories of massive boars, but this beast was larger than the surely exaggerated tales overheard by the hearth at the inn. Now, seeing this, she wondered just how exaggerated those tales had been.
Fang had not sheathed his sword, exposing his massive hands â or were they paws? â and the dagger-like claws at the tip of each finger. Sheâd not seen them this present yet, and he appeared terrifying and primal, barking and growling and slashing at the boar between dodged charges. Massive fingers flexed out from his hand, tipped by sickle-like tips, not unlike the knife she had found on the body less than an hour ago. The boar would take huge, striding passes while the Wolf and the Barber would strike in passing. Fangâs claws raked at the thin skin effectively, drawing red ribbons that sprayed out at each swipe, but Errylâs sword seemed almost useless. The thin, swishy rapier did not seem to cut well, and she began to see the man wielding it lose his temper.
âHold the fucker,â Erryl barked, barely dodging another charging swipe from the boar. It had been very close, and Corea was not sure if heâd been entirely unscathed.
Fang raked the boar across the face, barely dodging the strike himself. The boar squealed a horrible swine-squeal that bellowed from massive lungs. The boar cleared some distance and began to turn, digging its weight deep into the soil and kicking up a torrent of dirt. The boar stood then, panting, sizing the pair up. Two sets of tusks raked at the path, throwing up clouds of dirt and clods of musty soil along with clumps of grasses. It looked poised to charge again.
âNear a thousand pounds. Not that strong.â
âI need to get it in the eyes,â Erryl added, not acknowledging Fangâs point.
âFine.â
She watched the Wolf widen his stance on digitgrade legs and leaned slightly forward, lowering his body to the earth. His arms were outstretched, as though he planned to catch the boar. He wasnât planning on doing that, though, was he? Corea noticed him breathing hard, his fuzzy brow furrowed in concentration.
The boar kicked up more dirt and dust and suddenly charged forward. Erryl took a few steps back as Fang began to shift, crablike, along the path as the boar charged. She flinched when the massive beast came upon the Wolf, but then she saw the boar lift into the air, almost like it was in a flying leap, only back-first. Time felt slower now, as she took in the sight. The boar had not willingly gone vertical, but rather she saw that Fang had locked his massive hands around the larger set of tusks that were peeking out of the boarâs maw and had seemingly lifted the boar skyward by the head. The boar was at the apex for whatever this flip was as Fang twisted his body, holding the boar upright with all his strength for a scant few moments. As soon as the boar crossed that apex, the beast slammed down, hard, on its back, and Fang stumbled backward, either dizzy or exhausted from carrying the weight.
The boar, helpless for a moment, legs kicking skyward, wiggled its massive bulk as best it could to right itself. As soon as it had slammed, Erryl had darted forward toward the gnashing ahead and with great finesse threaded the shaking needle of a blade into the beastâs eye socket. He planted the rapier tip deep into a giant, pale yellow eye and swished and flicked, finally drawing the rapier free with a sickening thread of eye jelly arcing from it.
The boar squealed and gnashed and kicked with all its might, nearly knocking Erryl over. Fang, meanwhile, still recovering, began to claw at the kicking legs, nearly succumbing to two direct hooven blows to the face. Within the ferns, Coreaâs eyes shone at the opportunity, and she arose, firing her small arrows at the giant, aiming at the guts where she knew pig skin to be weaker. Yet still, several of them bounced off the thick, bristled skin. But as the beast finally gained enough momentum to right itself, a single arrow hit its mark, finding purchase in the large testicles that dangled between the hind legs. The boar screamed and whipped its massive head in her direction as it steadied itself on its hooves, one eye little more now than an oozing socket running down a thick jowl. It snarled, drooled, and tried its best to scrape the arrow from its balls with a hind leg as it began to thrash her way, knocking Erryl over and swatting Fang with a heavy tail across the chest, sending him stumbling back.
What began as a slow lurch accelerated into a charge, and Corea fired an arrow that missed the boar entirely just as it crashed into the tree where she had sought cover. The tree fell forward and nearly crushed her as she scrambled into the low ferns, crawling as far from the boar as she could. Still enraged and sure the target of its ire was in the immediate area, it began to whip its tusked snoout in the ferns and shrubs, tearing up every single plant it hit, nearly catching Corea by the ankle or ass multiple times as she crawled as fast as she could. She tried to throw herself over the downed tree as best she could, but was not fast enough. The boar howled and began to thrash on the fallen tree, and she tried to crawl over. The tree rolled and bounced, tossing her back into the shrubs.
She was exhausted and tried to crawl again, away from the boar as it slowly approached. She had turned and was now pulling herself from it as she faced it directly. Only inches away, the jaws of the beast opened, and the scent of rotting meat hit her like a gust of rancid air. The heavy breathing belayed a frustration, and Corea was now the scapegoat for the massive swineâs wrath.
The head of the boar suddenly jerked upward, exposing the fleshy neck. She saw two massive, clawed and furred hands digging deep into the jawline and pulling the head upward. Fangâs grip was so deep and powerful that his knuckles were buried in the porcine flesh. The boar thrashed, but she could see Fang straddling just behind its skull, desperately wrestling the head skyward.
âCut!â Fang roared, continuing to jerk the massive head upward and exposing the neck flesh. The boar continued to roar and shake, but Fang held on, gripping with all his might and digging his claws deeper into the fatty jowls that began to ooze crimson.
Corea drew the new curved blade and was relieved that it was still sharp. She rose to unsteady feet and threw herself forward and upward, toward the neck as the boar stomped and thrashed, jamming the knife as far in as she could. She had nearly sunk the blade to the handle; she struggled to keep her grip as hot blood fushed from the wound. When she realized she had gone as deep as she could, she threw all of her weight into running the full length of the buried blade across the throat, showering her in even more blood as she dragged.
Finally, the blade popped loose, and she collapsed, accidentally tossing it a few feet away as the boar began to die. Directly under the thrashing beast, she breathed hard and spat out what felt like an eternal stream of blood raining all over her. She tried her best to belly crawl out from beneath the boar, but the plants were slick with blood, and the dirt had become ruby mud. There was no hold to propel her along, and each inch was hard won.
As she crawled, she watched Fang continue to pull the head upward, the new neck wound widening further and further, like a fabric sack splitting open. The sound of broken bones and tearing flesh was eerily clear despite the earsplitting gargling and mournful squeals of the boar. Within a few moments, punctuated by his inhuman growls, Fang pulled so hard that the neck broke upward and ripped the boarâs head clear from its shoulders, just as Erryl swept in, plunging his rapier into the tearing tendons with a near frenzy.
Corea had never seen so much blood. She stopped trying to move and simply watched, in awe, at the sheer ferocity of Fang. As the boarâs body collapsed, he tore the head free of the last of the tendons and the remainder of the spine, and tossed the newly freed head, weighing at least a hundred pounds, to the dirt. He crawled from off the beastâs shoulders and began to lick away the blood from his claws, staring at her, saying nothing. His eyes shone with a bright yellow glow as the forest darkened around him and he seemingly fell into the shadows themselves, with the exception of those beautiful, horrifying eyes.
It was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen. She passed out just after.
âŠ
âYou had no place in that fight, and you nearly got yourself killed, you idiot. You godsdamned child.â
Erryl stomped over to Corea, his rapier flexing as his wrist rolled. She flinched. He paused, whipped around, and marched back to the boarâs severed head and kicked it across its massive snout.
âFuck!â
Fang glanced up at Erryl, as he was sitting by the trophy, and punched the man in the hip. âDonât spoil the prize. Go kick a tree,â the Wolf said in his low growl.
Erryl sheathed his blade and placed his hands on his hips, fuming, staring downward, but not really staring at anything as far as Corea could tell. Fang sat, observing, patting himself with his massive hands and releasing puffs of dust into the air. He examined a claw and began to lick at it.
âYou need to grow the hell up.â Errylâs tone was curt as he looked back at Corea. âThis is life and death.â
Fang said nothing, his eyes shifting between the two of them. Corea didnât quite know how to make out his expression, but she had the distinct feeling the Wolf was annoyed. She was surprised how different he looked now, sitting casually by a grotesque severed boarâs head, seemingly fiddling with what would have been his nails had he been a human.
âIf she dies, she dies. Sheâll learn quickly or not. No sense in a tantrum,â Fang added.Â
Corea felt her skin redden in embarrassment, and she quickly buried her face into some of the cloth Erryl had gathered earlier to cleanse the sticky blood from her face.
Erryl sighed. He glanced down at Corea, but she did not look back at him, pretending to be focused on scrubbing her face.
âWeâll keep an eye out for a pond or something so you can wash away that blood. Serves you right to be covered in it.â Erryl marched toward the boarâs corpse and began to look it over. He knelt and felt the thick, fatty skin. âFor now, we take what we can.â
He drew a knife and plunged it into the back alongside the mane that ran down the spine. âNot the largest one Iâve seen, but a real hefty fucker nonetheless.â
Fang had shifted the boarâs head between his legs and was sawing at the flesh around the tusks. âOut west. Real brutes,â he added.
Corea couldnât resist asking. âHow big did they get out west?â
Fang continued to saw at the jaw. He paused and gripped a large tusk, trying to shake it loose. It didnât budge, so he grunted and continued cutting into the flesh. He spoke then, âWest Brakfel, furthest out Iâve been. Saw one nine feet at the shoulder. Several orc riders on it. We retreated after we lost three men in one charge.â
Corea said nothing. She watched the men work, harvesting different things from the corpse. Fang had grabbed his tusks and tossed them into a bag. He began to cut strips of flesh from the jowls and laid them out over the snout. Corea figured he planned to dry out the meat.
âNeed the eye jelly?â Fang asked.
Erryl paused his work. Heâd cut several large squares of thick skin from the back and was now inspecting thick bristles along the sections. He plucked at one, inspecting it carefully.
âThe intact eye. Full thing, try not to break the sack, itâll ruin the jelly.â
âNot very delicate, friend,â Fang muttered. He glanced at Corea, who had timidly approached him. She sat in front of him and gestured to the intact eye. Fang nodded.
She pulled out her kitchen knife and began to prod the socket, careful not to pierce the eyeball itself. She was so engrossed in the task she nearly missed Fangâs sniffing as he continued to carve at the jowls.
âYou smell like an abattoir,â he muttered. Corea laughed under her breath.
âHow long does it take for a werewolf to pee, honestly?â
âChild, do you not see the size of him? The last thing I would do is complain about the micturition rate of the thing that is getting us through these woods unscathed.â
Corea glanced over to Erryl. He was leaning against a gnarled old tree, with a small book, scratching something into it. She watched the featherless quill shift between his fingers.
âWhat is âmicturate?ââ
He glanced up from his writing.
âIt means to pee.â
âIâve never heard it that way.â
âItâs a scholarly word, the kind you learn from studies among mages, surgeons, and doctors.â
âHow did you get in with them?â
Erryl paused for a moment, pinching the featherless quill between the pages where he was writing and folding the small book closed. He crossed his arms, and she could hear him tap the book against his bony elbow.
âI went to school for it at my fatherâs insistence. Then he died, but I was already deeply into the training, so I continued. I had planned to open a shop, but war came to Tradewind, and I worked on the battlefield. Never really stopped.â
He paused.
âI suppose to answer your question: I went to school.â
âIs that where you get one of those weird little featherless quills?â
Erryl paused for a moment. His face screwed up into a pinch, like heâd not understood the question. But just as soon as he had done that, he glanced down toward his small book and extracted it.
âThis is a pen. Virtually identical to a quill, but you can keep it much longer.â
He held the pen vertically with pinched fingers and glanced at it for a while.
âIt was a gift,â he added.
He shifted his focus to Corea and held the pen to her. She had begun to teach out to pluck it from his grasp, but she held back. It had been important to the man. Upon his wiggling the pen in front of her, she gingerly took it from him and began to examine it.
It was mostly wood, but there were bits of brass. A small plate showed something engraved, but what it was she could not read. The pen had a heftiness to it and was much heavier than she had expected. What intrigued her most was the point that was something between a spoon and a blade. It was like the end of a quill she had seen, only carefully made from delicate metal.
She had been so entranced that she hadnât noted that Erryl had his book open to her on a page.
âTry drawing a line here, in the corner, where itâs blank.â
She could not recognize the words he had written on the open pages â they looked like scribbles â but there were pictures. There were local plants drawn in the gaps between the words, and she recognized several of them quite readily from her own experiences. The pictures were quite good.
She glanced up at him, and he nodded back.
âYou have to hold the pen at an angle so that the ink will flow from the reservoir inside to the tip. Try it.â
The blank section was not very large, only about the size of a thumb, but she placed the pen tip near the top of the gap and began to drag the tip downward, angling the pen. In the first moment, there was nothing, but then suddenly bluish-black ink began to run from the tip to the paper. It was fascinating. She rolled the pen between her fingers and was alarmed to see that smooth line erupt into a splotchy mess.
Erryl pulled the book away and reached his hand out for the pen.
âAside from the blot, the line looks pretty good. Perhaps we can make a writer of you, yet.â
She handed the pen back.
âWhat is it you are writing in there, sir? I saw nice pictures of some of the plants.â
Erryl was fiddling with his pen for a moment. He tucked it, and his book, into a pocket inside his vest.
âA trick I learned from hedge doctors Iâve met. I take notes and observe unique things as I travel and make a record of different places and what resources I might use if I ever return.â He tapped the journal where it rested against his chest. âThis is my third such journal. I may write a book one day.â
âWhat unique things have you seen?â
Erryl leaned back against the gnarled tree and thought about it.
âMany things. I find I surround myself with unique things. Iâve met a mummy. I travel with a wolfman. Iâve seen the cousins of dragons â not dragons, mind you. Theyâre gone.â He thought a moment more and smiled. âI can also say that I have never quite met another Corea Gorse out there. The gods blessed me with a life that helped me to learn the letters and use them quite well. It would be a shame not to use them to point out the unique things out there.â
Corea was quiet for a few moments, thinking about words â the written ones. Sheâd seen they were useful, but had never had a chance to learn them. There really wasnât much use to them in a dying down.
Maybe after finding Garen, she could convince the Wolf and the Barber to take her and her brother with them to a town where learning to read would be useful.
âDo you think I might be able to read and write like you one day?â
Erryl said nothing.
âŠ
Corea had been asking Erryl questions for quite a while, with no sign of the Fang. After a time, the conversation lulled, and some noises came from the brush. Corea kept her hands near her knife, but Erryl continued to lean against the tree, unmoved by any caution. It must have been Fang.
And it was. The Wolf took heavy steps from behind a tree and emerged onto the road.
âTook you long enough,â Erryl muttered.
He glanced at Fang. Corea could not tell what sort of expression the Wolf had on his face, but Erryl did, and he moved from the tree and placed a hand on his rapierâs hilt.
âCome,â was all the Wolf said.
âŠ
The corpse was, from what Corea could tell, a day or two old. She did not recognize him, no matter how many times Fang and Erryl had asked her or painted out some detail. She was just glad he was not Garen. She was content in the fact that she knew nothing of the man, given the state of the body. He was just a stranger who met with a grim fate and not someone she knew. The two roadmen spoke to one another in hushed tones, and Corea kept at a distance from the corpse. She couldnât help but stare.
A rumbling question of âwhat killed him?â snapped her attention to Fang, who was staring at her. Not just Fang. Erryl as well. Their attention was upon her, and it appeared they expected an answer.
âIâm not sure.â
âNot good enough,â Fang responded. âReally look. Get closer.â
Corea felt she had seen too many corpses today, but stepped closer. They expected an answer. It was some kind of lesson, and this one was at Fangâs urging. The last thing she wanted to do was to keep him waiting.
The corpse was a man she did not recognize. He was against a tree, his head lolling down, chin on his chest. Blood had soaked through the top of his shirt just around the neckline. His arms hung loose, and his fingers twisted and curled over open palms that lay up from the ground where he sat. Before she moved closer to investigate his neck, she took in the state of the scene. He was not quite sitting in a camp, but it was apparent he had been sitting down and resting. His gear had been set aside, his weapons laid out within grabbing distance had there been an attack, but to no avail, clearly, given the fact that he was dead. She spied some rations that had yet to be picked up by a scavenger. Nor had the body attracted much beyond bugs and the ever-present maggots found around rotting meat. The denizens of the woods claimed the dead quickly.
This was beginning to feel like it was a matter of hours, not a day or so, since the man met his end. No slimes. No dismemberment. Just a dead man, alone.
Behind her came the sounds of muffled chewing, and she looked back to see Fang and Erryl observing the situation, clearly judging her, while eating some of their own packed rations. Fang had a rather large serving of saltpork and tore at it with vigor, and Erryl seemed to be picking at some croutons.
âHow can you eat in front of a corpse?â she asked.
Erryl continued to pop croutons into his mouth. Fang looked down at her and shook his head as he chewed through his sizable bite of meat.
âYou eat when hungry. You eat when you have a moment to spare.â He gestured back to the corpse with a nod. âTell us what you see, girl.â
Corea knelt and paused for a moment. She took a breath, grabbed at his hair, and began to pull the head up from the chest. A sticky, unfurling sound made her uneasy and turned her stomach, but she continued to pull, shifting her gaze from dead, shocked eyes and staring at his neck. Several gashes came into view all over, just above the neckline. Sheâd thought, maybe, it had been a slit throat, but she hadnât expected it to be so jagged. She was no stranger to butchery. With chickens, quail, and other birds, it was a quick chop. Sheâd bled goats and pigs for Mr. Gorten in the line of duty. You learned that a single, strong stroke was the way to go. This did not appear to be that. Those required a smooth slice at the neck to bleed them rapidly. The first time she was tasked to slaughter a goat, sheâd fumbled it and got kicked in the face by a flailing leg. She didnât let that happen again. The pigs still bothered her, though, and she was thankful pork was not something New Gordhurst had a lot of access to.
But this â this was clumsy and violent.
âHe must have been resting, and someone snuck up and stabbed him several times. Would have been more proper to slice him.â
Fang grunted, nodded, and crouched beside her, still tearing at saltpork. He pointed to the wounds.Â
âNot unusual for bandits. Touchy ones at that. Dangerous places make dangerous men.â He sniffed the air and peered around before he continued, âI doubt theyâre far.â
âIdiots at that,â Erryl added. âTook his gold purse but left just about everything else that would be useful for survival. I doubt they are locals and know what else lingers in these woods.â
Corea has risen to her feet and taken several steps back from the corpse to take in the scene, visually sorting through the scattered belongings. She noticed a knife.
Within an instant, Fang was within earshot, having risen without her hearing him. His hot breath near her face was like the steam of a boiling stew. His massive, snouted face snuck into her range of vision as she continued to look at the corpse.
âTake the knife. Take the short bow.â
She would do as she was told and pick up the knife.
âGood. Learn as you go.â
The knife had an accompanying wooden sheath that could be tied on oneâs person with a basic cord, and she did just that. She didnât really care to think about what the notches on the sheath had meant. Knife secured, she drew it, noticing the blade was blackened. It was roughly an inch or two shorter than her kitchen knife, but also slightly curved. This was a bleeding knife, and the manâs killer would have had a much easier time with this blade.
âA good knife,â Erryl remarked. Corea nodded and sheathed it, turning her attention to the shortbow near the corpse. Erryl had already been picking at what arrows he could find and had found the small quiver. He finished slotting a pair of arrows and handed her the quiver. He turned his attention back to the corpse, picking through what had been this dead manâs few belongings.
The shortbow was a small weapon of stealth, as she understood it, talking to some of the town guardsmen, but it did not have the power of a longbow. But then again, Corea was shorter than those men, and in her own hands, the bow did not feel very small at all.
Again, Corea was caught off guard as the Wolf crouched before her, as she had studied the bow. She had heard nothing, again, only just catchingt a sudden, massive form slide out in front of her. He looked at her with his large, yellow eyes. She could read his expression here, one of concern, his browline raised and curious.
âEver use one?â he asked in a low, soft voice.
âNever.â
âWe practice as we go. You fire past me. I collect them. Iâll point out the targets. You donât have the strength to kill with it. But you can maim if you attack the legs. Do not fire at me.â
Corea heard Erryl cast a muffled laugh at Fangâs words. Her face flushed, and she felt a surge of shame recalling that morning. She glanced into Fangâs eyes, but there was no sense of annoyance. There was a softness that felt odd, but reassuring. She nodded.
âBut ghouls donât really get hobbled by arrows, sir.â
Fang rose to his feet and looked down at her.
âNot ghouls that worry me.â
âŠ
Erryl had scrounged up cloth from the manâs pack as well as his small, thin bedroll. As the party moved forward, he would tear up cloth for bandaging, wrapping the scraps into tight bundles, and then tucking them into the bedroll.
As for Corea, she and Fang had been at work training her archery skills, which were far from satisfactory. He would point out a tree, she would miss, and she would inevitably empty her quiver. Fang would fall back from his lead position and return, handing over the arrows he had collected.
The first time this had happened, she had cracked a joke about playing fetch, and Fang told her that he would eat her. She had not made that joke since.
She was hitting the trees more often now, after what felt like a quarter-hour or so, but the problem was getting the arrow to stick. She was strong enough to hit the range given her life of choring, but the arrows mostly bounced off the bark, barring one or two instances of the arrowheads finding purchase and hanging loosely. Hardly a true success.
After the third quiver of arrows was returned, she asked for a break. Fang shrugged and obliged, darting back ahead. Erryl snorted.
âCorea, how do you expect to be of any use if you donât push yourself?â
She didnât answer.
âChildrenâs games, I suppose,â Erryl mused.Â
She felt a radiance of annoyance from behind her, the words lapping at her like a cold wave. It was just a break; what was the concern? She shrugged his words off and kept her pace. Besides, she had already contributed. She pulled the small slime bottle from a coat pocket. The pale green substance sloshed in the bottle, but the organ inside, the clear bubble, did not really move.
She had earned it. Sure, she was not as strong as Fang, nor as experienced as Erryl, but she was holding her own, and she was learning.Â
She put the bottle away, pulled out a strip of saltpork from another pocket, and began to eat as she kept up her pace.
âŠ
âGodsdamn it, Corea, I told you to stay inside.â
Garen looked quite funny, wrapped in blankets and wielding a broom.
âThese bats can give you the sickness if youâre bit. Go back.â
Most of the local bats were largely harmless, but a new, larger bat had begun nesting just outside under the shack roof, pushing the old bats out. Garen had asked around, and from what he could gather, this was a type known as an Iskaran Wraith. It was huge with coarse black fur and giant red eyes. Some in town even suggested they drank blood and preferred children and goats, specifically. There were werewolves to the north, and this could just as easily have been a vampire, as he saw it. It wasnât, but if a vampire were going to take the form of a bat, then the bat would be an Iskaran Wraith â at least, that is what he reasoned to her.
The local Red Furs ate the insects of the area, and their guano helped fuel fires all over New Gordhurst. Their local cluster that lived under the roof was harmless and helpful, and Garen had decided that the Wraith had to go, for their sake, and definitely not because it was probably a vampire.
âWhatâs a broom gonna do?â
Garen looked over at Corea and shook his head.
âThe broom is just to knock it down, dummy. Iâll stab it once itâs on the ground.â
âI can help.â
âYou can help by leaving me alone.â
âI can go tell Mr. Gorten?â
âNo.â
âWhy not?â
âBecause we donât need him.â
âBut heâs tall, he can probably get at it easier than you.â
âIâm tall for my age,â Garen chuffed.
âKent is taller than you, and heâs nine.â
âKent stretched himself by tying his feet to a mule and hugging a tree. We all know that.â
âNo, he didnât.â
âHe did. Now hush. Iâm gonna kill it.â
Corea watched her older brother awkwardly wave the broom around in the gaps and corners where the roof met the shack walls. Shit, twigs, and cobwebs clung to the broom, which would be up to her to clean. What wasnât trapped by the broom had now fallen onto the blanket armor that he had swaddled himself into. Again, it would be on her to clean that too.
Garenâs yelp snapped her out of her grumbling as she saw him frantically flap and toss the broom as the black bat was darting at him, annoyed.
âMy knife. Shit! Iâm tangled!â
She watched his swaddled form practically dance, his bagged body unable to get a grip on the knife, wherever he had been keeping it. This would go nowhere beyond some kind of sickness for her brother.Â
She dashed to her frantic brother and grabbed at a flapping corner of Garenâs blankets and pulled enough fabric free to arch it high above the bat. She pulled the fabric down and pinned the bat to the ground, trapped beneath cloth, as Garen lost his balance and fell, hollering and thrashing all the while.
The batâs shrieks and chirps filled the air, along with Garenâs confused yelping. The creature would be going nowhere, and with all her weight, Corea hopped upon the rustling lump and felt the body shatter and squelch beneath her boots.
Garen saw what Corea had done and went silent. Then he vomited.
âŠ
Corea swirled the substance in the bottle a couple of times, having fished it back out of her pocket, marveling at the remains of the slime she had killed.
She would have a fun story to tell Garen when she found him.
Mulluck Eghart lay on his back, his head turned, watching the Wolf leave with the thin stranger and the child. He smiled and spat up a little blood. Heâd enjoyed himself greatly and was excited to have an opportunity to fight the werewolf. Heâd kill him next time.
He rose off the muddy grass and spat up a bit more blood with a cough. After catching his breath for a few moments, he rose to his feet, swiped at whatever mud he could see clinging to his body, and trudged toward the Mayorâs home. He slipped off the iron knuckles and tucked them into his pocket. As he approached the steps to the porch, he noticed one had been shattered into splinters â likely the fault of the beastman. He skipped the step.
The foyer of the home was a mess, again, mostly the fault of the wolf, though Eghart himself had contributed to it. Though the Mayor neednât know that â if he were still alive. Eghart paused at that thought â he sincerely hoped the Mayor was not dead. The man had been one of the few people in Eghartâs life who treated him well enough. Eghart may have tried to pull the wool over his eyes with his gambit all those years ago, but the Mayor gave him work and a home and a sense of stability heâd not felt since he was a child, before the monastery, the farm, and the various bandit camps heâd fallen into. Eghart liked the man.
Though he wasnât convinced that the Mayor wasnât aware of what Eghart truly was. If he was, he understood the score and kept Eghart around. It was maybe the best relationship Eghart had with any authority in his life; he would rather not lose that. He doubted the town would last long without Mayor Gorval. Though that was likely due to whatever bargain heâd struck that Eghart had no details of.
Eghart approached the man on whom his comfortable existence depended; the Mayor was crumpled into a heap at the base of a bookshelf, covered in errant tomes and scrolls. Eghart crouched, cleared away the small pile, and saw that the Mayor was alive but unconscious. Eghart exhaled and then realized heâd actually been holding his breath. He was relieved that he hadnât been mauled to death.
Eghart lifted the man from the floor, quite handily despite the Mayorâs not-quite-inconsiderable girth, and propped him up onto one of the seats in the center of the study. The manâs head hung loosely, and Eghart had to lean it back over the top of the seat.Â
Glancing around the room, Eghart took in the chaos â the wolf had carved a swath through the study. He couldnât make out much about what had happened beyond an overwhelming sense of rage. The crossbow bolt sticking out of the opposing seat suggested the Mayor had been agitated as well. After a few seconds, Eghart saw the crossbow on the ground near the doorway and picked it up, just as Mayor Gorval stirred, groaning.
âUghn.â
âWhat happened, sir?â
Corrigan Gorvalâs head lolled toward Eghart, and the Mayor was slow to respond, his eyes wide, then shutting again. The man was having a hard time seeing. Eghart approached, holding the crossbow in one raised fist with his other hand held open and flat.
âItâs me, Captain Eghart.â
Gorval, with great effort, leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees, and his head slumped down, staring at the floor. He coughed a bit and spat up some blood onto the rug.
âFucking werewolf attacked me. One second, I was dealing with that medicine man, and the next I felt myself flying. Then I hit something, and everything went dark. Did you see where they went?â
Eghart placed the crossbow down on the floor next to the Mayor and stepped toward the shattered window, where the werewolf had made his entrance into the home. Glass crunched beneath Eghartâs bare feet, but he felt nothing.
âI saw him climbing into the window from the street and ran here to stop him. Fought him, and he overpowered me. I got my shots in. Ran off with his partner and the child â the other Gorse kid.â
âYou fought him?â
âYes. I can get him next time.â
The Mayor was silent for a moment. Eghart continued to stare through the shattered window as he heard Gorval rise to his feet â all grunting and heavy breathing.
âYou saw the Gorse girl⊠they took my niece?â
âShe seemed to go with them willingly, sir.â Eghart turned back slightly to look at the Mayor. âShe stabbed me.â
âItâs all falling apart, isnât it?â
âNot if I can help it, sir. Now that I know youâre safe, let me go get them.â
The Mayor had walked toward the pile of books on the floor at the broken shelving and tapped at them with a slippered foot. He grunted, though Eghart couldnât be sure if it were frustration or pain. Maybe it was both.
âThe Wolf⊠they were⊠are⊠a Triserian. There is some magic in their blood, and that may be why the undead are closing in. Like predators fighting over territory.â
Eghart understood predators more than the Mayor ever could. He said nothing.
âItâs like watching ants. Those two stirred up the whole pile, and theyâre trying to kill the invadersâŠâ
The Mayor turned from the pile of tomes and stepped toward Eghart.
âCan you kill the mercenaries? Maybe we can still salvage this situation. If theyâre gone, things can go back. The truce can go back.â
Eghart nodded.
âI need silver.â
The Mayorâs eyes widened for a moment, and then he made his way, limping, to another set of shelves against one of the walls, piled high with boxes and books. He plucked a polished wooden box from a shelf and wiped away a layer of dust from a bronze plate set on the lid. He paused for a moment, glancing longingly at it. He limped back to Eghart and shoved the box toward him, which Eghart took.
âDo what you must. Kill them both. Bring back my niece. Iâve already lost a nephew. I wonât lose her, too.â
âI donât know if sheâll go willingly. She attacked me.â
âBeat her to within an inch of her life, then. Just bring her back alive by any means necessary. She can hate me for the rest of her life, but at least sheâll be alive to do it.â
âYes, sir.â
âEghart, thank you. Youâre going to save us all.â
Eghart paused. He nodded awkwardly.Â
âSir.â
Eghart swept out of the room and out into the open air of New Gordhurst. He pried the box from his chest that he had been clutching tightly, overwhelmed and short of breath.
Eghart had always been a survivor beset by cruelties beyond measure. He still woke up some nights, terrified that he was still the same boy on that ranch. Sometimes Elspeth would rub his chest and ask him what was wrong. Heâd tell her nothing and take her, or she would take him. That was their arrangement.Â
But the Mayorâs words had shaken something loose just now. Corrigan Gorval relied on him, and not just as a captain of the guard. For the first time in a very long time, Mulluck Eghart felt something other than rage or the anxiety of survival.Â
It was pride. He had someone he relied on, but who relied on him as well.
Eghart would do everything in his power to fix the crisis and get the girl back. Heâd slay the mercenaries. Heâd beat the Wolf to death. He would save everyone of this shitty town. Heâd not just be âEggâ anymore â and even if they continued to mock him, he knew that they depended on him, and he would remind them of that. Their lives were in his hands.
He glanced down at the wooden box in his hands. The bronze plateâs etching read âTo Harriet, my Beloved.â He flipped the lid open to see dull, but still quite fancy silverware. The set was still complete. Now it would serve a greater purpose.
Eghart closed the box and made his way to New Gordhurstâs meager forge; the weight of the iron knuckles in his pocket was a welcome sensation.
Soon to be the tool of the demise of the werewolf.
Soon to be the tool that saved the town.
âŠ
Nathan Gorten watched Egg wander from Corriganâs home, holding a small wooden box with a rather uncharacteristically light step. He wondered if the man had taken to looting the place, and if he would find his brother dead. Heâd heard the clatter from the inn and had watched Eghart and the Wolf fight. Heâd seen his niece in the fray and had conflicted feelings about that.
Eghart had fared well, but ultimately lost. The mercy of the Wolf was striking, and Nathan had wondered if that had been a mistake. Eghart was a murderer â that much was obvious. Heâd become a good tool for his brother. Nathan never trusted the man; his arrival was suspect, and the man was off. Between the pale skin, his massive frame, and his curious tolerance to pain, Eghart made Nathan nervous. Heâd seen the man back into a spear once and not react. It was terrifying watching the man pull the head of the spear loose from his side, slowly and awkwardly, and not so much as flinch.
Nathan approached and surveyed the damage to the home. The window had been shattered, there was damage to the steps to the porch, and the front door had been ripped off its hinges. He made his way up and paused at the doorway. Heâd not set foot in the ill-gotten home in years. He followed the porch to the window and glanced inside, seeing Corriganâs back as he sat at the desk.
âAre you alive?â
Corrigan glanced back over his shoulder, staring back at his brother. He winced, clearly in pain, and Nathan was pleased by this.
âYes, regrettably for you, I am still alive.â
âI may hate you, Corr, but I donât hate you enough to see another brother die. I came to see if you were okay and let you know that our mother died this morning.â
âFuck.â
âCorea found the body.â
Corrigan turned back to face the inside of the study.
âI see. I feel for her. That canât have been pleasant.â
âNo, she is Larianâs daughter for better or worse, and she seemed⊠hardened this morning. Resolved to something. She reminded me so much of him when we were kids.â
âShe was here, you know.â
âI saw. With the two mercenaries.â
âAnd you are okay with that?â
âShe is Larianâs daughter. She wonât be stopped.â
âYouâll trust her with a fucking monster and soldier of fortune over her uncle, then?â
Nathan huffed.
âYouâre not her uncle, Corrigan.â
âI am Larianâs brother, just as I am yours. I am her uncle by all rights, and you fucking rats filled her head with lies. Her and Garen, both. Do you hate me so much?â
Silence hung in the air for a long moment as Nathan wondered what to say. He said nothing, and that said everything.
Corrigan rose from the seat and approached the window, looking Nathan in the eyes.
âI wonât lose any more of my family.â
Nathan moved closer to the window frame and leaned against the wall, staring at Corrigan.
âIts not just your family that matters, Corr. You have never understood that.â
âI lost my son.â
âSo did others. And some lost daughters. Some lost husbands, fathers, uncles. Wives, mothers, aunts. We should have fled further when it all fell, but you chose not to.â
âI had my reasons.â
Nathan slapped the wall.
âJust like you had reasons to fall in with that magician. You were blinded by greed. Youâve always been. You hired a killer to guard this town. How many people need to die for your poor judgment? You canât salvage this. That Necromancer wants us here, and you are giving them what they want â why?â
âThen flee. Leave.â
âYou know that I canât do that.â
âYou did when you and Larian changed your names. You forced Mother to do the same thing. You poisoned everyone against me when I needed you all the most,â Corrigan leaned closer, continuing, âyes, I fell in with that dark magician, and he seduced me, Harriet, and Martin. But you abandoned us to him.â
âWe broke away because we warned you and you refused our help.â
âThat is not how I remember it.â
âMemory was never your strength, Corr.â
Corrigan reached through the open window frame and grabbed Nathanâs apron, pulling him closer. Nathan ripped Corriganâs hand away and took several steps back.
âIâll be burying Mother this afternoon. You are welcome to come. Consider it a gift to remind you of having a family.â
âFuck you.â
Nathan shook his head.
âYour greed fucked me and everyone else long ago. No, thank you. No more.â
Corrigan stepped further back into the study, nearly slipping on splintered wood from the collapsed desk. Nathan watched him in silence as Corrigan drew a crossbow that had been sitting in the dark. He held it aloft and aimed it at Nathan.
âItâs not even loaded, Corr. Donât do anything stupid.â
âJust leave. Go.â
Nathan sighed and sidestepped away from the shattered window. As he followed the porch, he could hear the sound of crying coming from the study.
He couldnât help but cry as well. How had things gone so very wrong? He thought of his mother and was glad she had not lived to see what had just happened.
âŠ
âI can take care of that for you in a couple of hours; there is no need for swords or horseshoes today, Mr. Eghart.â Sandval, the smithy, looked Eghart over. âYou look like a mess. Did something happen?â
Eghart stood there, a fistful of silverware in each hand. He said nothing, and Sandval simply shrugged and set the kettle into the forge. Eghart dropped both fistfuls of silver into the kettle and reached into his pocket, placing the iron knuckles on a nearby anvil. He walked away from the smithy, who began to inspect the knuckles.
Eghart whistled a tune as he walked back toward his home to prepare for his hunt. It was a sweet little song, and he couldnât quite figure out if it was a lullaby, a work song, or a hymn.Â
Garen was alive. Still alive despite everything this fucking town and the surrounding woods threw at him.Â
His nimbleness had been his greatest asset, but he would find himself winded, repeatedly, while the unending tide of wandering dead would ceaselessly march on any resting place he would pause at for respite.
Old Gordhurst was a place he barely remembered from his youth, but the central lane from the escape was enough of a landmark to work with. He found himself clambering from ruined home to ruined home, narrowly dodging some hidden ghoul and barely escaping into the spaces between homes. It would have been monotonous if not the most terrifying thing he had experienced since the initial flight from the town years ago.
He pressed further into town, maybe aiming to reach the other side, or find some relative safety in some space that wasnât already occupied by a shuffling corpse. He wasnât sure anymore. Itâd been at least a day without any food, and his water-skin was little more than some clinging drops and backwashed spittle. At this moment, he found himself at the gate of the old church grounds â it was a house of many gods, and he leaned against the cobblestone frame that made up the gateway of the entrance to the grounds.
He glanced behind him. Several houses away, a crowd of twenty of the undead continued a slow, lurching bead on his position. He coughed as he watched them stumble toward him and swore he tasted iron. He had been pushed for two solid days, or was it three, now? He didnât know. He took several deep breaths to try to steady his heart and glanced toward the church. He saw and heard nothing within the openings that served as windows and decided to take his chances. It was a sturdy building, and he hoped the door could be opened and shut again.
He also hoped that nothing lurked within the church, either.
He made his way to the door and tried to open it outward, but it jerked suddenly, and the rattling of wood caught him off guard. The door had been barricaded.
He cried and slammed his fist on the heavy wood. He spun around, his back against it, and screamed in frustration. His spear clattered on the cobblestone steps that led to the church.
He gave himself a moment. Thatâs all he could afford. He collected his spear and approached one of the windows. The church had never been granted glass â it was a relic of an earlier time, and thus it was always open. Garen limped forward and studied the gap in the wall.
He might fit.
Fit or not, the moans from the undead compelled him to try to squeeze through. He leaned his spear against the wall. His head cleared the bottom of the window, and he looked inside. All he saw was darkness streaked with the greenish haze of light that had filled the sky â he had no idea why the sky was green here beyond the influence of the Necromancer.
He knew why, but not the mechanisms of it all; what the dark magic was. Skies were not supposed to be green.
He weighed the options one last time and, with all of his remaining strength, hauled himself through the window, collapsing to the floor. He expended the last of his reserves and climbed up, putting all of his weight on the churchâs stone walls, and reached through the window for his spear. He clumsily pulled it through the open window and finally collapsed again, breathing hard through his mouth. His choking and wheezing breaths smothered any other sounds, and he might just as well die here and now â there was nothing he could do at this point. He was done.
He shut his eyes, and the creaking of wood from somewhere within the church forced him to open them again. He tried to get up, or at least roll into a position that could allow him to defend himself, but there was nothing to it. He shut his eyes again.
âYouâre alive?â a hoarse voice asked; A manâs voice.
It took so much effort to open his eyes that Garen almost chose to leave them closed. His vision was blurred, and the darkness of the room made details indistinct, challenging to take in. A figure loomed over him, staring down.
âBlink if youâre alive,â the stranger demanded.
âFuck youâ was Garenâs reply as he finally blacked out.
âŠ
Lemmex was quick to drag the boy and his spear away from the wall and toward the cellar hatch near one of the altars. He didnât know gods anymore, not really, but the beautiful woman sheltered him, her altar next to the cellar. As he lifted the hatch, he took another look at the matron and the lettering on her platform. He couldnât read. All he saw was a beautiful, nude grey woman with the characteristics of the Florian people â the living plantfolk of the woods and forests. Where there should be hair was delicately carved stone leaves, and her features were smooth in other spots. Where he might normally have expected a nipple, there was nothing, like she wore layers of plant growth, like her body was a flower emerging from the green of a stalk.
He did not know her, but he loved her.Â
He kissed her feet, prayed to his unknown lady, and kicked the boy down the cellar hatch. He soon climbed down and shut the hatch off, lifting it again slightly to grab the spear and pull it under.
âŠ
Garen awoke in a room that seemed relatively well-lit and surprisingly warm for what it was â all stone and rotting wood. The room itself was strange and built around the remains of a dead tree.
He adjusted his eyes, staring again. No, not a tree, but made to look like a carved tree. What was this? His head hurt, and he slowly pulled his body up from the floor, putting his weight on his right forearm.
That is when he noticed a small cup and plate on the floor next to him. He grabbed the cup immediately, sniffed it, and, not smelling anything suspicious, he sipped. It was water. He downed the rest of the cup desperately.
He turned his attention to the plate, and it appeared to be strips of some unknown flesh, burned to a crisp. He sniffed it, and it struck a foul note. He was so hungry, thoughâŠÂ
He shook his head and turned his attention back to the room, taking in the surroundings. He about shit himself when he noticed a man sitting in the corner, staring directly at him, his eyes shining in the dark.
âYouâre from the town south, yes?â the stranger asked. His voice was brittle and hollow like bird bones.
âUh, yes.â
âYou here to rescue me?â
âI donât even know who you are.â
âLemmex.â
âLemmex?â
âDonât ask me to spell it. Donât know how.â
Garen shook his head and sat up straight. His head was killing him, as heâd been sure heâd bumped it. His whole body ached as though heâd taken a fall. He wanted to be home, desperately. Not in this strange space.
Beside the strange, tree-like object built into the stone wall, the room felt like a hovel; a mishmash of scavenged garbage and religious artifacts. There was a small hearth that seemed to feed up into the Helatros hearth that would have normally occupied the church. Ash piled around it, either accumulated from worship long ago in the space above, falling through grates into this cellar, or accumulated from the cooking of Lemmex.
There were also rats, dozens, hanging from their tails across a line of twine stretched across the room. Some had been skinned, and Garen recognized they were going to be food. He glanced back at the plate, and then back to Lemmex.
Garen pointed to the plate. âRat?â
Lemmex nodded and smiled. Most of his teeth were gone â except those that were rotten or shattered.
Garen pulled the plate toward him and grabbed a small strip. He sniffed it, and it smelled okay. He took some between his teeth, nibbled at it, and, content with the circumstances, ate it. It was gamey and practically burnt to ash itself. He ate everything on the plate.
Lemmex crept closer to the center of the cellar, out of the shadows where he had been hidden. His eyes were wide, yellow, and latticed with stressful red webs.
Garen scanned his immediate area and saw that his spear was not at his side. He glanced around in a daze and saw that the spear had been in the corner where Lemmex had emerged.
Unsure of what to do, Garen held the cleared plate close. Heâd seen what a thwap from a plate could do atop someoneâs skull from Mr. Gorenâs place. It would at least give him a little space to grab something else if it came to that.
âSo, did you lot come to rescue me?â Lemmex asked. âI seen your kind here before, but usually the heathens get at you. You all dress the same, so you have to be an army, yes?â
âMy kind? Have you seen anyone else recently?â
âJust the dead ones being brought in.â
âDead ones?â
âYeah, dressed like you. Must be your friends. Theyâre dead now.â
âHow many?â
âCanât count. I was just the knife. No need for me to be learninâ fancy numbers.â
Garen clutched the plate tighter.
âKnife?â
âOh yeah, me and the boys did the knife work on folks before the town was killed. The road south. Made coin on what people were willing to pay, and made coin if they wasnât. I was just the knife.â
Garen felt uneasy. The man was clearly a bandit. Had he been hiding here since the night the town fell?
âYou live here alone?â Garen asked.
âNo, got Stone-Tits upstairs.â
Garenâs head hurt. He felt a sharp pain behind his right eye. âStone⊠Tits?â
âSome goddess. Statue of her,â Lemmex pointed above, â a flower witch. She guards the hatch.â
Garen thought of what goddess Lemmex spoke of, but was not too familiar with the gods himself. He kept the faith in Helatros, but that was about it.
âAside from âStone-Tits,â what else can you tell me about her? You said flower witch?â
Lemmex grew agitated and scratched at his cheek, really digging into the matted beard. âThe F-florian goddess,â he grumbled, pointing a dirty, thin finger accusingly at Garen, âdonât touch her. Sheâs mine.â
Garen nodded, âOf course, I wouldnât touch her. I was just trying to remember her name. I think it was âRootmother.ââ
Lemmex stopped scratching at his filthy beard. His eyes grew wide, and he chuckled to himself. He rose from his animalistic crouch and stood up. He did a jig. âRootmother, eh? Ha ha!â
He stopped dancing and returned to his crouch, looking agitated again. The moment of joy evaporated instantly. âStone-Tits is better,â he mused darkly.
He flashed a wicked grin at Garen and crept closer.
Garen gulped and nodded. âYouâre absolutely right, Stone-Tits is better.â
Lemmex clapped his hands, giggled, and crouch walked toward the lit hearth, away from Garen. Garen released some of the tension in his body, but still held the plate close.
âHey, Lemmex?â
âYes?â
âIâm Garen.â
âGood name.â
âThank you. Can we talk about what is going on here?â
Lemmex sat at the hearth, his body hunched, thin, and his bare back showed scars, including a nasty one near his kidneys. He glanced back over his shoulder.
âI canât read but I can talk. I like talk.â
Garen rose to his feet and kept the plate behind his back. He stretched a bit. His body was still aching, and his lungs still felt like they were on fire. He took a deep breath and approached Lemmex very slowly. Lemmex turned his head back again, and Garen paused.
âTalk,â Lemmex spat.
âYes. Can you tell me how you got here?â
âŠ
Lemmex found it hard to remember a lot of things. He thought hard. He took time to put together what he knew. Maybe more would show up when he needed it. He spoke:
âI joined Eggâs band a couple of years before everything went to shit. We were doing good for ourselves. I did the knife work while Eggy did the planning. Smart guy, he was. Real asshole, too. Cracked me a few times, strangled Sylvo to death once on account of him slipping up at a bar. Egg planned to rob a small wagon, and Sylvo squawked and Eghart strangled him â no, snapped his neck â yes, broke his neck like a little chicken. Got rough for a bit and had to lay low. Only ever saw some of the guys try to kick out Eghart after that. We used to call him Egg, you know? They tried to kick him out, and Egg cracked three of them. There was fifteen of us. No, fourteen. Sylvo is dead. Yeah. Egg broke three arms, and then nobody said anything after. Lean times. Mostly knife work and buryinâ folks in the woods. Stripping bodies for what we could. Egg, Eghart, he got us through until all the shit happened. Some magic fucker raised the dead, and our robberies came back to bite us in the asses and we lost more guys. I was a knife guy, so I made it okay. Something wrong with all that. Unnatural, the dead walking, isnât it? Eghart led us to town, but everyone was leaving in a panic. Then something snapped, Eghart cracked, and he crushed Millinâs skull like it was nothing and drew on us. We tried to fight, but he was an animal and felt nothing. I am good with the knife, and he felt nothing. He tried to stab me, and I ran here. Should have run elsewhere, ha ha. Ran here and found the church. Knifed the priest and locked the door. Heard screaming. Had to get away from Egg, though. Stone-Tits pointed the way to the cellar. Been here since. Got the priest down here, too.â
Lemmex pointed to the remains of the priest in the rightmost corner of the cellar.
âFelt bad about what I did. He keeps me company. Donât talk much, though.â
âŠ
Garen had originally failed to notice the remains of the priest, having confused them for garbage when he scanned the room. Now he saw the brown custodial robes and the leathery skin stretched tight over skeletal remains â some skin broken at the top of the head where a yellowed skull began to peek out.
All of this was a lot to take in. The mention of Egg alarmed him, of course, but the madman sitting at the fire was the immediate concern.
âThank you for letting me know, Lemmex.â
Lemmex said nothing and stared into the embers of the hearth.
âI want to thank you for bringing me into your home and giving me some food and water. I am going to leave now. I promise I will send someone back to rescue you. I canât do it myself. Okay?â
Again, Lemmex said nothing and continued to stare into the hearth.
Garen took a deep breath and edged his way toward the corner where his spear rested, the plate still firmly tucked behind his back.
âDeath out there.âÂ
Lemmexâs low whisper forced Garen to pause. Garen felt sweaty now and cold around the base of his back.
Lemmex rose to his feet, eyes still locked onto the flames. âYou wonât come back.â
âLemmex, I swear, I will. Weâll get you out of here, but I have to leave to do that.â
Garen edged closer to the corner and began to reach out with his fingertips. He was just about there.
His eyes darted back and forth from the corner to Lemmex. Lemmex stood still, and Garenâs fingertips crept ever closer to the spear.
A glint at Lemmexâs hip caught Garen off guard, and before he could quite understand what he had seen, Lemmex had lunged, knife arcing wildly in front of him. He gargled and barked, swinging the blade.
Garen reached out for his spear with his free hand and waved it at Lemmexâs arm as he went in for a thrust right toward Garenâs gut. In the moment Lemmex was caught, he yelped at the redirection of his trajectory. Garen pulled the plate from behind his back and slammed it into Lemmexâs face. The heavy clay shattered into a dozen pieces, and the madman fell to the ground, face-first.
Garen tightened the grip on his spear and stood in front of the ladder, peering above, noticing the hatch. He began to climb and pushed the hatch upward, but it didnât budge. He fumbled in the dark for the barricade and threw it to the ground, finally lifting the door, climbing back into the darkened church. The eerie green light already told Garen it was late afternoon. Darkness approached.
Garen stepped away from the hatch and observed the statue of the Rootmother. He silently mouthed a âthank youâ and found he was still very much winded. Whatever amount of rest he had taken had certainly helped, but it was not enough.
He leaned on his spear, doing his best to catch his breath again. The noise of the hatch, he realized, must have echoed in the stone church, because he heard the barricaded door at the entrance shake. Ghouls had begun throwing themselves at it. Through the glassless windows, he would see ghouls reaching decaying arms into the sanctity of the church.
He spun around, taking in the entire room, and saw a door opposite the entrance, behind the central pulpit. He weaved between the seats and climbed the steps, throwing himself past the pulpit to the other portal. He opened it with little caution to find it was nothing but the chamber of the custodial priest. He grunted and dashed to another chamber door on the opposite side of the pulpit. He threw open the door and found the kitchen. He stepped in, found a door to his left, threw it open, only to find it connected back to the priestâs chamber.
Garen howled in rage.
He shuddered in surprise to hear someone howling back. He stumbled through the priestâs chamber, back into the church proper, and saw Lemmex standing before the entrance. He began to howl again. He smiled, flipped the barricade upward and to the floor, and slit his throat, stumbling into the door as he bled out. His weight fell into the door with such force it popped, creating a crack for long enough for a ghoul to slide an arm through, and soon enough, tattered fingers gripped at the wood, pulling the doors increasingly open against the crush of ghouls pushing toward the church. The very doors once thrown open, outward, to collect the weary, were now a funnel for the damned.
Garen dashed to the cellar at the base of the Rootmotherâs visage and threw himself into the hole, looking upon her as he fell.
He landed hard on the cobblestone floor, but wasted no time grabbing the barricade at his feet, climbing the ladder, and locking the hatch. He slid down the ladder and heard clumsy feet walking all over the wood, rattling it terribly.
Garenâs legs gave out, and he slid down the ladder, sitting just below the entrance. He was tired and had to hold himself up using a rung.
He began to cry.
âŠ
It must have been night by now. Garen had drunk more of Lemmexâs water and cooked up some rat. He was surprised to find a wineskin and took a sip.
His first real drink. Hell of a place for it.
Heâd tried to drink from one of the cups left by a patron at the inn when he had worked there briefly. Mr. Gorten â no, Uncle Nathan â caught him in the act and slapped the cup out of his hand after barely a sip. To add insult to injury, his uncle had slapped him hard across the ear, which rang until the next morning.
He hadnât tried that since.
But now, the dead above, in the hovel of a lunatic murderer, he was sure he would be forgiven for drinking something.
Heâd fucking earned it.
Above him, there were still sounds, but theyâd slowed down and grown less intense. Still, it seemed too dangerous to move back into the church. With little else to do, Garen began to explore the cellar. As near as he had determined, this room was a secret space that was intended for some other faiths. Maybe far older ones than he knew. More private, he supposed. It couldnât have been storage for the other shrines within. This was a secret place.
There was the stone tree and the smaller hearth. There was also a cracked pillar that held a stone hammer, or most of it â the handle had broken off. There was a tapestry on one wall, hidden behind Lemmexâs filth and scrounging, and covered in grime and dust. Garen could not figure out what it meant to depict.
But two of these hidden shrines stood out to him.
The first appeared to be a carving of a werewolf into ancient wood. The figure appeared to be a woman with a wolfâs head and tail, her body draped in some robe with regalia he did not recognize. He took a swig from the wine skin, taking in the detail.
She looked resplendent yet feral. He considered Triseria to the north. Gordhurst had been close to the border of the kingdom, and as a child, he remembered tales and warnings of the wolves. Triseria had once laid claim to this area, he imagined. Long, long ago.
But the wolf in the carving comforted him in some strange way he could not understand. He continued to gaze at the shrine, nodded to the figure, and poured some wine to the floor. It seemed like the thing to do, like something in his very blood demanded he pay respect in some form.
The other shrine that spoke to him was one he knew was far older than any other here. He saw a stone, largely roughly hewn, but carved from it was the delicate work of a skilled hand, depicting a dragon.
Dragons died centuries ago, as Garen remembered from childhood tales. They gave their souls to Poe, the hero of legend. Theyâd given their lives to help him to defeat the Void, which ended with a cataclysm that shattered the West. As he understood it, the Void had not fully been defeated. All the dragons were dead. He was here in this godsdamned cellar, staring at some shrine to dead gods and dead heroes.
He sighed and squeezed out the rest of the wine from the flask to the floor. Once empty, he threw it toward the hearth in the back of the room and stood in silence. The silence helped his head hurt a little less. But the silence was broken by something curious â the sound of running water?
He looked around for the source and noticed the wine draining off, behind the dragon shrine. He glanced around the base and followed the flow to the base of the stone wall next to the statue. On a whim, he tapped at the stone and was greeted with a hollow sound. He felt the wall and ran his fingers over the surface, desperate for a seam. He began to search the cellar for something to make a torch. He found a broken chair and pried a leg away, and then made his way to the remains of the priest, nodding solemnly before tearing old fabric from the robes. He dipped his torch into the wine on the floor and lit it in the hearth.
He felt hope as the old robes caught flame.
Under torchlight, he searched for a seam, and finding it, traced the outline of a passage. These were old religions, some of them perhaps forbidden. There must have been an escape in case of an emergency. But pressing on the hidden door did nothing. There had to be some trigger.
He took a look at the dragon shrine again. The placement of the shrine and the door had to have a deeper meaning. But what? He recalled everything he knew about dragons and the legend of Poe, but nothing seemed obvious to him.
As he scanned the dragon shrine, he took in the intricacies of the depicted dragon and wondered if this had been a specific one. He had no idea, but he took in every detail he could notice. This shrine, a depiction of a serpent-like figure carved from a solid stone, emphasized the torso where a human chest might appear had it been a bust of the legendary hero himself.
He thought back on the legend as he knew it. The dragons gave their souls to Poe. Garenâs heart pounded in his chest. He was so close to something. As he grew conscious of his heartbeat, a strange turn of phrases rattled around his brain. A common saying, innocuous enough, really. He thought of Corea, as he always did. He loved his sister⊠heart and soul.
âHeart and soul?â
Garen took a free hand and placed it on the part of the dragonâs torso that seemed to him where a heart would be, as much as one could interpret the body of a dead dragon. He put his weight against the stone and felt the stone begin to shift and grind as three of the bands that made up the dragonâs underside began to collapse into the shrine under the pressure of his palm. Once the resistance grew too great, he heard a click as the hidden passage popped open. It was a simple wooden door with stone tiles meant to mask it like solid stone, so seamless in craftsmanship.
Garen glanced at the dragon statue and began to cry.
The shattered glass door funneled into a darkened space, blocked off by a hastily assembled barrier of office desks, cabinets, chairs, and whatever else had seemed practical to jam into a pile. There was even a rocking horse, which ultimately would have done nothing to stop a more intelligent invader, but given the lack of sense the dead seemed to show, it was just another defense in the tangle. The rocking horse, upright, rocked as the ghoul on the opposite side of the doorway repeatedly bumped into the waist-high barrier, flailing desiccated arms toward Dani. Periodically, it would slump, not quite falling onto a desk in the barricade but bending over it, scratching at the surface with broken fingertips and slapping at the horse, which would rock silently. The ghoul would pant, moan, and gargle at Dani. Itâs dead eyes staring nowhere specifically.
The eyes were unsettling. They were cloudy, and it didnât seem like these things could actually see through them; the lens was scuffed by dirt, grime, and who knows what else came with the seeming inability to blink. As it flailed, bumped, and tore at the surface of the desk, which was covered in streaks of rancid blood, it did not blink once. The perpetual stare almost seemingly peering at, inside, and past her. There was rapid movement of the eyes themselves, but they were locked at a point she could not comprehend, as though the corpseâs eyes were always fixated on something unknown. The fact that she was in the path was just a result of the body of the dead woman being aimed at her. The motions did not seem personal or of the ghoul itself â it was being driven by some sense or alien force, hijacked by some apocalyptic agent and puppeted in the most grotesque way imaginable.
Dani stared at the ghoul for a few moments before shifting her attention to the lot behind her, noticing the group of ghouls approaching from behind, rocking and swaying as they shuffled to her. She wondered if any governmental remnants or the CDC had any idea what the hell these things actually were â maybe if there was a solution in the works to reclaim the area. All she and the others had was a hope and Sandyâs insistence that her brother would rally a rescue mission and sweep into Emmet, guns blazing and tanks rolling down the central highway. Ooh-fucking-rah.
Itâd been weeks since a substantive broadcast from The White House or whatever was there, and most radio now was either emergency broadcasts on loop, mysterious messages from some sources she could not discern, or the obscene and conspiratorial rantings of sovereign citizens. She had borrowed Bobâs ham radio one night a week back to reach out to someone, anyone, but the immediate response was so horrid she never reached out again. At least the ghouls didnât threaten to rape her or promise to make her a brood wife.
The thought made her shudder, and she was very much aware again of the rifle slung over her shoulder. She would need to be a much better shot in this world. For now, it was just reassurance â or more of a panic button. She felt the reassuring weight of the fireplace poker and stared down the ghoul. It continued the pattern of swiping and nearly falling onto the surface of the desk. Dani took a step toward, still out of reach of the ghoulâs grasping, nubby fingertips. It appeared agitated further. The flurry of outstretched arms finally sent the ghoul tumbling over and slamming down onto the desk, flailing. Dani took the moment to slam the hooked end of her poker into the back of the ghoulâs skull. The ghoul continued to flail, but not in response to Daniâs attack. She grunted as she slid the writhing corpse across the desk, through the doorway, onto the concrete and glass, where it crumpled into a face-down heap. Her foot resting on the undeadâs shoulder, Dani ripped the hook from the back of the skull, which again the ghoul did not seem to respond to. Disgusted, she jammed the tip of the poker back into the hole with force until the resistance of the concrete stopped her; for good measure, she began to stir the poker tip inside the skull, and soon the writhing stopped. She drew the poker back with a little resistance on exit and flicked all the brain matter she could from it.
Though now, taking in her current circumstances, Dani was beginning to realize, to a degree, the folly of her impromptu mission. She was opting to walk into a darkened hellmouth, and she wondered what use the walkies were for if she and everyone kept leaving them behind. Next time, she thought, there has gotta be a next time to bring the goddamn walkie.
She climbed over the desk, across the bloody streaks on the surface, and set off into the darkened building. The inside was quiet aside from the whistle of wind coming from the broken door and faint sounds within. The kid had certainly made a choice running from her back into this building, but she was not about to give up on the chance to save his life. As she saw it, he was small and had proved his tenacity so far; as frustrating as it was to try to reason with him given this shit and chaos, she had to press on. But she could not bear to see the child die, or become one of the living dead.Â
Dani moved slowly down the short hallway, careful of where she stepped. She glanced back and forth, her eyes adjusting in the dark, scanning ahead between what appeared to be a more open room ahead and the tiled floor, which had been strewn with the detritus of holdouts and the leftovers of survival. Just how many people had been holed up in here, and for how long? She knew of four based on what Edgar had observed, and only one of them was now alive â presumably.
Her head spun with questions about what had happened here in the weeks since the outbreak, though Dani didnât quite know when it actually started. Had it been New Yearâs Eve, New Yearâs Day? The days after? It didnât take long for things to really fall apart when they finally, inescapably fell apart. It seemed maybe six days in total, give or take a day or two. How soon did people find themselves hiding in this district office? How many, when the time came, chanced an escape and may have inadvertently gotten others killed? There were so many layers to all of this, and the most frustrating part was never really knowing. Everyone who might have had an answer was probably dead or in a bunker beneath a mountain.
Dani crept toward an open door to her left, which was slightly ajar. She clung to the wall, paused, and listened intently for motion within. Hearing nothing, she whipped her head past the frame, peering into the space that was partially obscured by the door. Inside was an office, ransacked but still filled with sweet, homey decor, reflecting optimism and assertive effort, like that of an H.R. lady. A poster depicting a climber on a rock face read âKeep on Climbing!â and Dani chuckled at it. Sheâd been to the college counselor once or twice before dropping out and had seen a similar poster â maybe even the same one. It was just vague enough to be considered empowering, technically, but practically useless in any specific context. Cloying bullshit made all the more darkly ironic given the circumstances.
She nudged the door open wider, carefully, wincing at the sustained, slow creak. The rest of the room was a mess; anything seemingly valuable was probably gone. No silent ghoul was lurking within, thankfully, but she wasnât prepared for a bloody dog bed next to the desk. There were no signs of remains beyond reddish-brown staining on the teal pillow. She winced and closed the door, silently damning the creaking but relieved to shut the image away. Dani noted the placard attached to the door as she pulled it shut â Melissa Gutierrez, Human Resources â and a taped photo of a cocker spaniel, and a nametag stuck to it that read âHomer.â
God-fucking-damn it.Â
Dani shook her head. She leaned back against the wall next to the room and stared nowhere in particular, just away from the door. Inevitably, she saw the door directly opposite the H.R. office and noticed the sign â Gary Watts, Requisitions and Warehousing â and several bloody streaks on the door. Dani stepped toward it and, finding a spot not covered in blood, pressed her ear to the door, listening in. Hearing nothing, she tapped at it with the tip of the poker, and after a moment, there was moaning and shuffling, unmistakably that of the living dead. She glanced back toward the way she had come as the group of ghouls from outside collided with the rudimentary barricade, unable to navigate over it. She stepped back from the requisitions door and took one last look at the H.R. door behind her.
Fuck this. Dani pushed deeper into the building, her eyes adjusting to the dim lighting; she was searching for whatever signs she could of the kid as she approached the larger room. She didnât quite know a name for it â maybe it was an atrium?
The room appeared to be the heart of the building, where the main entrance had been reinforced with a similar pile of furniture to the rear entrance she used. She also noticed bike chains in the darkened room; though the front was mostly glass, it had become grimy and discolored, and the mid-morning sun was not quite at an angle to shine much direct light within. All she had was a yellowish ambience, which rendered everything far more sickly and aged than it technically was. One desk against the glass had piles of papers that had spilled onto the floor in front of it, and dozens of papers pasted to the windows â there had been a plan to cover sightlines, and Dani was not sure if that was a good idea or a bad one.
Dani still had no idea if the ghouls actually saw anything, or what drove them. Instead, staring at the papers, she wondered if the inability to see the ghouls was the actual point. Even back at the storage yard, the group, as exposed to the elements as they were, had reduced sightlines with the exception of gaps they could use. It made sense, in a lot of ways, to keep the terror of the outside world out of sight. The papers on the glass were beginning to make more sense.
The atrium itself wasnât tremendous. It mostly combined what appeared to be a line to some sort of teller-style window, three hallways, and some seating, which had been shoved toward the glass in the front entrance. The space was mostly devoid of anything comforting, nor did it look like a space where anyone would have spent much time. The amount of exposure from the glass probably had a lot to do with that.Â
As she approached the pile against the entrance, she glanced out to see her former apartment complex across the street. She hadnât noticed it right away, but a ghoul swept into view, wandering on the walkup to the entrance of the district office. Dani flinched whenever it looked in her direction, though it was clear it did not seem to perceive her. The apartment complex across the street stood passively with no sign of motion. Sheâd considered returning, once or twice, to see what supplies could be rounded up. But there was always a hesitation that always emerged. It wasnât about the ghouls within â Stephen and Julieâs corpses flashed for an instant in Daniâs mind. She turned from the window and stepped back toward the center of the room.
She peeked in the teller window and saw what seemed to be a former supply hub. Wrappers, cans, and boxes were strewn across the floor or on whatever desk space was available in the small office. The computer â the novelty of computers made Dani feel nostalgic for a moment â sat, covered by a layer of fine dust except for a single smiley face sticker stuck to the powerless screen of the monitor.
It came down to two choices â left or right. She hadnât been shot at so far by the kid, which was either a good sign or a horrible one. She hoped, desperately, that he was scared and holed up in some office, quietly waiting her out. She could reason with him; she knew it. She could help him get back. He could apologize to Edgar, and they could make a go of it. She just had to figure out how to get the kid to stand down so they could escape together. At the end of the hall from which she had emerged, she saw ghoulish silhouettes framed against daylight, and though their forms were darkened and obscured. She saw they were still trapped by the desks of the makeshift barricade. How these things had managed to decimate so many already confused and frightened her, and she wondered what all this said about humans like her. She did her best to tune the ghouls out, as she listened to ambient noise in the largely quiet building. There was the sound if motion to her left. In lieu of any other evidence, she chose to head that direction.
Peering down the darkened hallway, she could make out four doors on either side, a fire escape door at the very end of the hallway, and a right turn. She tried to make sense of what she saw of this layout with what she observed of the outside of the district office, but gave up, realizing she hadnât observed much over the years living across from it, or the less-than-an-hour so far rescuing Ed and trying to reach out to the trigger-happy child.
Of the four hallway doors she saw, two of them were open: one to the left, one to the right. She was no Daredevil, with super hearing, but she felt confident there was shuffling from one of the rooms to the left.Â
Christ, Iâd kill for those billy clubs and ninja training.
She crept down the hall, feeling exposed, taking in everything in front, below, and behind her, wary of any potential movement. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark to the point where she could navigate with relative confidence, but not with enough detail that she could entirely avoid caution, especially across garbage-covered tile. Sheâd just barely brushed a grocery bag with the tip of her foot and nearly shit herself at the crinkling. The first pair of doors, opposite one another, were now just a couple of feet away. The door to her right was closer, so she shifted gradually toward the wall to the left, tiptoing over soda cans. As she approached, she noticed that this room did not have a solid wall, but rather a large pane of glass from floor to ceiling â maybe like a conference room, but it was hard to tell at this angle. The opposite room looked to be an office, but also a bit smaller, with a similar floor-to-ceiling window. About a foot from the doorway, she paused, holding her breath, and listened.
There was a shuffling of feet on the carpet and the crushing and rattling of things on the floor. The loudest, though, was the telling moans and gargles of the undead. They had been seemingly alerted to something, and Dani wondered if it had been something she had done before realizing more than likely it was the kid running by. Whatever was happening in the room was small; sheâd seen these things wander over the past couple of weeks, until something grabbed their attention, they were content â though that word didnât seem to apply, really â to wander in small, set spaces, waiting for some sort of signal to move.
Dani glanced at the floor, holding her breath as she nudged a can away from the doorway so she could sidle a bit more toward the opening. Content that she had alerted nothing within, she scooted closer so she could crane her head around and look inside. The vision of a ghoul biting at her face and knocking her to the floor worked to caution her from peeking, but she had to press on.
After a deep breath and a silent count to three, she turned her head past the door frame and looked inside. Her view had been immediately obscured by a shambling corpse within a foot of the room, its back to her. She covered her mouth with her forearm to keep from gasping in surprise and did her best to look past the ghoul, realizing she could see at least three others a few feet further. Dani retreated around the doorway and shoved the sleeve of her hoodie even deeper into her face, muffling her panicked breathing as best she could. She listened intently for any change to the ghoulsâ movement, but sheâd apparently gone unnoticed. There would be no guarantee of that if she tried to cross. There was one thing to do, and if she fucked up, things would be even worse for her and the kid.
With a sharp breath, she stepped into the doorway and kicked the ghoul in the small of the back, sending it stumbling forward just as the other ghouls in the room, seven by her quick count, shrieked and shuddered upon noticing her. She looked to the door and was surprised by what seemed to be a belt tied to the handle. She grabbed the handle at the belt knot and pulled the door shut as she stumbled backward out of the room, sealing it with a click. She continued stumbling backward until she fell against the opposite door, rattling the frame and the glass window next to it. She scrambled to her feet in a panic and then stopped to take a deep breath between the two rooms. The ghouls in the newly closed room pressed themselves against the glass, clearly aware of her. She could swear she heard the strain of the glass under their weight and clumsy slaps. Taking in the whole space, now, the room was a conference room, as she thought, but the number of ghouls did not line up with her admittedly hurried count a second ago.Â
She looked into the room behind her, and seeing nothing, was content to move her back to it to take in more of the chamber of horrors she had just closed off. When she had counted, she had just seen bodies and assumed they were the living dead, but now it was clear there were only four of them, with three other corpses in the room â eerily still. Why they had not been turned or consumed was a mystery, but as Dani took in the state of the room, past the writhing clamor of the ghouls against the glass, she saw the room for what it had been: a triage space. It was hard to make out explicit detail between ghouls sliding along the glass, following her motion, but she did see three bodies on the large central table, each covered slightly, with no sign of blood or tampering by the ghouls. It was almost as though the bodies served no interest to them. Nothing made sense anymore, but this seemed to irritate her in particular. Bob had mentioned heâd taken time to observe them, but if they really wanted to understand what they were up against, theyâd need to study them. Jimmy agreed with him. But Dani always said that she would just rather kill them off. But it looked like Bob and Jimmy had a point. Maybe there was something up with the bodies that they seemingly hadnât touched? As Bob had said, âknow your enemy.â
As Dani scanned the room for whatever clues were left in such a state, she picked up on something she had not noticed earlier â something large beneath the conference table. She squatted slightly to get a better view of what it was, and she jumped when she saw a ghoul seemingly staring directly at her from under the table. But she could only catch glances because of the tangle of bodies in front of her. She wondered if there was a way to get a better view, and on a whim, she tapped at the door to the side. Sure enough, the four standing ghouls clustered toward the door as Dani held still. She managed to divert them. She slowly crouched down, careful of any sudden moment, eager to get a clearer view beneath the table. As she did so, she studied the ghoul beneath, which wasnât so much a single ghoul, but a tangle of three or four. Just how many bodies did they shove into this room, she wondered.
It would be hard for her to explain what exactly she was seeing back at camp. There was a central ghoul below the table that seemed to be aware of her presence, staring at her, accusingly. She appeared to be a small woman, and due to decomposition, Dani could not guess at her age â she could have been a teenager, Dani guessed, but there was no way of ever knowing. Besides the disturbing awareness present in her gaze, however, was the fact that three ghouls below the table had her in a sort of embrace. Dani had to count the arms to be sure. The other ghouls seemed to press their bodies into the girl, wrapping her in their spindly arms, shielding her, shying her away from some harm Dani wasnât sure they could comprehend. It reminded her of sparing someone from the cold, like in a survival movie.
The whole time Dani observed, the ghoulish girl did not take her eyes off her. Periodically, the jaw would shift, and it seemed like the ghoul would murmur in silence. It was the most uncomfortable thing Dani had ever experienced, and she found herself overwhelmed, wretching against the glass. After a few agonizing moments, she wiped the vomit from her mouth on a sleeve â the ghoul hadnât stopped staring once.
A sudden burst of noise back from where she had entered â she thought â caught her off guard, and she turned to focus on the sound of the clatter and a series of hollow moans. Perhaps one of the ghouls had knocked something loose from the barricade, or even spilled over a desk onto the floor.
She didnât want to look back in the conference room and the staring ghoul, but some force â a morbid curiosity, perhaps â compelled her to do so. As she shifted her eyes back to beneath the desk, she was alarmed to see the ghoul had retreated further back, and the embrace of the others tightened and obscured her form, except for her gaunt, blank face â her eyes still staring intently at Dani.
Dani scrambled to her feet, terrified, and made her way down the hall past the window, pressing her shoulder against the wall. She felt the world around her spinning violently.
âWhat the fuck was that?â She gasped. âJesus. What?â
As she waited to see if the world would stop spinning, like the New Yearâs quake weeks ago, she tried to pick a point in the office window across from her, first at a mobile whiteboard with frantic notes, and then began staring at something on a desk. As her senses began to return, she noticed various tools â pliers, scalpels, and other things; she thought of the contents of a doctorâs bag. And then she saw a human head in a pan, jaw moving slightly, dead eyes staring toward nothing.
Dani couldnât help but yelp.
Her eyes darted, wary of any movement or reaction to her loss of control. There was a seeming response further to her left, down the hall â a moan, but not much beyond. To her right, where the clatter had been, there was the sound of a cluster of hollow exhalations. As she slowed her breathing as best she could, hoping to calm herself, she noticed the door to the office with the severed head. On it as well was a belt tied to the handle, and across the floor, something sheâd overlooked with everything going on, were a few other belts. They had been tied from handle to handle as an added measure to keep the doors shut. It seemed that the idea was that some lucky ghoul would not be able to open the door by accident. Dani considered the girl within. She wondered if this group had observed something more alarming.
But the line had been severed. Dani wasnât sure what it all meant, but a dark thought crossed her mind. Maybe the belt had only recently been severed by the kid, a trap for his pursuer, a trap for her. She wasnât going to let that theory stop her. Sheâd club the kid upside the head and drag him back if she had to. There were the living and dead, and from what she had witnessed, precious few of the living.
More clattering from where she had been drove her to her feet. Dani stabilized herself against the drywall and, taking a moment to steel herself, pressed forward, wary of any sound from the kid. Wary of a gunshot. Ahead were two doors on either side, along with the chained-up fire exit. One door had been shut, but the other was open, which led to a breakroom and kitchenette. She didnât bother with the shut door and kept low as she crossed the frame of the open room; on the counter near a microwave was a carcass â bone and gristle stripped of usable flesh. Dani did not want to dwell on the sight. She took a step back, out of the room, back into the hall. Sheâd seen enough, including the other doorway; the space would come into view as she rounded the corner of the hallway.
The sound of hushed breathing hit her ears as she approached the corner. Someone was winded and doing their best to keep their breathing muffled. But neither her nor the child had any illusions of successful stealth at this point, as she saw it. Her back to the wall, just at the corner, she held back from peeking around. The boy was near.
Dani tried to keep her voice low, calm, and sweet. âIâm not going-â
There was a small yelp, followed by a wild shot that echoed through the district office and tunneled into the drywall near the fire escape. Moans echoed within the building from dark, unexplored spaces.
âIâm not going to hurt you. Please, we have a safe place, right across the street. I can take you there. Nobody is mad about you shooting our friend. It was a mistake. Whatâs your name?â
She realized how hurried that had come out as she finished speaking â her attempt at being a soothing presence had given way to panic in the moment. She hoped desperately as she waited in silence, wound tight against the wall.
Dani waited patiently, despite the sound of motion around the corner and increasing sounds from near the atrium.
âTheyâre gone,â the kid responded, his voice cracked and parched. She wondered when he had last had water.
âI know, Edgar, the big guy, he saw them hurt each other. He tried to stop it. Maybe you saw that and thought he hurt them. Heâs a good man. I swear. Please. What is your name?â
Another pause. More noises in the distance. Sniffling and restraining tears.
âTyler.â
âTyler, good. Iâm Danielle, but my friends call me Dani. If I come around the corner, are you going to hurt me?â
âNo.â
âIâm trusting you, Tyler. I want us both to get out of her together. Do you want some food? We can get you food. Weâre right across the street. We need to go soon, I think those things are getting in.â
âThereâs a door out. I wonât shoot,â he added. There was a quaver in his voice, an uncertainty that Dani could not read.
âTyler, I am going to come around the corner, now, okay? I am going to trust you, and I hope you can trust me.â
âO-okay.â
Moment of truth, Dani thought. She rounded the corner and stopped, squatting slightly, setting the poker down on the tile floor.
Tyler was young, maybe ten. He was thin â half-starved â based on the fit of the clothes that hung off him. He wore a black shirt with cartoon monsters from a Nickelodeon cartoon, and his jeans were bunched up around his Nikes. He looked worn, and his clothes looked like they had been on him for weeks, maybe since this started. His arms hung slack, and in his right hand was the pistol heâd clipped Edgar with.
On his left forearm was a bloody gash, and in that moment, Daniâs heart sank.
There was something in the bites. She learned that with Stephen and Julie, hadnât she? Everyone back at camp had a story about bites. Whatever this plague, disease, or virus actually was had been connected to the bites. Maybe it was a sickness or an infection. Maybe fluids. But there were bites or scratches. Always.
âSweetie, what happened to your arm, there?â
Tyler looked down, seemingly surprised at what he saw. âI think when I was trying to close the trailer outside, one of the people bit me, but I donât feel it.â
Dani kept staring at the wound, and Tyler stood there, awkward and frightened. She was desperate enough to ignore it. They werenât sure it was the bites â not really. But everyone else at campâŠ
Dani glanced at the poker on the floor. Fuck. The grief took her as she looked at the small, half-starved face of the boy named Tyler. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and he shook â he hadnât noticed, but Dani did. A fever would eventually take him.
She calmly, or as calmly as she could make it sound, asked a question. âIs that the exit behind you?â
Tyler glanced back and nodded. He looked back at Dani, and a faint smile crossed his lips. âOne way. Mom and Dad⊠we didnât need to do anything. No handle outside, and those sick people canât get it. Most of them.â
âReady to go?â he asked.
Dani swallowed. She crouched down to pick up the fireplace poker. It felt heavier than it had in a long time. She turned her head as she heard noises from behind her. She saw the first of the ghouls step into the large room at the end of the hall. There would be no going back.
Tyler was at the door, ready to push it outward. Dani stepped forward, silently, and Tylerâs expression soured upon seeing the poker in her hand. Dani felt herself fidgeting with it. He turned back to the door, ready to go.
âTyler. Iâm sorry.â
Dani took two huge lurching steps toward him, poker raised for an overhead swing. He turned back in time to see her approach, screamed, and threw his weight against the door, swinging it open and stumbling into the late morning sunlight. He drew the gun as he stumbled back and fired a shot, just hitting the door as it began to swing shut, missing Dani by inches, and she pushed her way through, horrified and frenzied and damned.
Tyler scrambled backward, sobbing, his gun hand shaking. âStop! Leave me alone!â
As Dani moved to clear the distance between them, a sudden motion from her left caught her off guard, and she watched Tylerâs head cave in â a bloody implosion where his face had once been. Dani froze at the sudden violence. Her ears rang, and the world began to spin again. Her poker slipped from her grasp as she stumbled backward. She looked up at the figure who had swept in with such violence.
Alicia stood, panting, wide-eyed. She held a bloody baseball bat outward and away, shaking, staring down at Tylerâs body. Alicia glanced at Dani, and Dani said nothing, turning her gaze back to Tyler.
Tyler took in a sharp, gagging breath. Soon after, he began to gargle and choke on blood and teeth.
âHe had a gun.â Aliciaâs voice was distant.
The ringing in Daniâs ears continued as she grabbed the bat from Alicia and began to smash it at Tylerâs broken head.
On this day, 2 May 1967, a group of Black Panthers armed with rifles and shotguns marched into the California State Capitol protesting against a gun control bill which was targeting them.
To fight police violence and harassment against Black people, the Panthers used radios to listen to police calls, then members would attend scenes of arrest with law books and openly carrying shotguns â which was legal â and advise arrestees of their constitutional rights.
To stop this self defence against the police, authorities brought in the Mulford Bill â dubbed the âPanther Billâ by the media â to ban the open carrying of loaded firearms in public.
The National Rifle Association, supposedly a gun rights advocacy group, supported Republican governor Ronald Reagan in signing the legislation.
To learn more about the Panthers, check out these books written by former members: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/black-panthers https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=618930186946867&set=a.602588028581083&type=3
As Dani passed through the open gate, past the disabled bus, she was confronted with far more ghouls than had been there just minutes ago. She couldnât be sure there wasnât another entrance on the distant end of the district campus. The kidâs shots had drawn roving dead toward his presumed position, and Dani began to approach, fireplace poker at the ready.
From what she could tell, the ghouls had begun clustering around the far end of the lot opposite from her, toward a small pair of trailer offices. She couldnât make out the kidâs position in the area. She had kept herself to a sort of hunched crouch, aiming to make herself less noticeable without sacrificing mobility. She did her best to keep completely silent so as not to alert any of the undead ahead of her. The idea, as far as she had considered any sort of plan at this point, was to get a sense of where exactly the child was. From there, she would alert the ghouls to her position and give him a window to run across the street, where she would meet him afterward. But that all depended on where the child even was, and what his condition was. It wasnât much of a plan, she would be the first to admit, but she was running on adrenaline and chance.
Dani began to close the gap between her and the stragglers of the pack. By her count, there were twelve of them between herself and the trailers. About eight were immediately surrounding the rightmost trailer from her perspective, clawing and slapping at the siding with discolored, wet hands and broken fingertips. That left four of them that were slowly lumbering toward the rest of the group. They were being drawn, but it wasnât clear how it all worked.
But what it told her is that the kid was likely in that trailer. That meant he could be safe, but he just as easily might have accidentally let one in, and he was now dead, or even undead. It was a box of suck she was hesitant to open, but if there was a chance she could help him, she had to. These past couple of weeks of fear and sadness, of not being able to do enough for Julie, her neighbor. She had heard the struggle next door and did not intervene. She sat in fear in her apartment as Julie and her boyfriend suffered, died, and returned as inhuman things.
And Dani sat there. Alone. Afraid. Was it possible she could have helped? She didnât know. She never would, not really. But fuck, she could have tried.Â
She could have tried.
Dani kept her even pace and approached the back of the closest ghoul. It had not noticed her, still slowly stumbling toward the trailer. She looked the ghoul over and noticed it had been hobbled. The foot had bent in completely sideways at the ankle, and each step ground down the ankle more and more. As the ankle raised from the ground, blood and bits of flesh would sluice off in ribbons, attached and tearing off from the asphalt. The foot was less a foot now and more a foot-like hunk of flesh, flopping uselessly every time the ankle hit the asphalt.
She rolled the fireplace poker in her hand, swung her arm outward, and swung in, aiming the hooked end right above the top of the torn ear of the ghoul with the ground-down ankle. The poker connected with an audible crunch as the ghoul lifted off the ground, collapsing onto its side with a thump on the asphalt. The impact point, covered in closely cropped brown hair, began to leak brownish blood, and small chips of bone carried by the pooling of blood slipped through thin, broken skin.
The ghoul was thrashing violently. Was it in pain? Was it just some rudimentary nervous system response?
It didnât matter, really. The ghoul began to moan, but Dani thwacked it twice more in the same spot, leaving a sizable crater in the side of the skull. After the first hit, the ghoul had stopped thrashing. But the second hit made the body shudder slightly, and she thought for a second that maybe it wasnât quite gone as it twitched.
The closest ghoul had apparently heard nothing and continued moving forward. It piled into the crowd, reaching and grasping between the tangle of bodies, trying to find some kind of hold on the trailer.
The sound was maddening. The strange, airy moans punctuated by pounding and scratching of the siding â relentless with no pattern. An hour of hearing that from inside the trailer would drive anyone crazy. She had to get him out.
Dani crouched and tried to listen for another sound. She wasnât sure what she wanted to hear from the kid. IF he was smart, he was quiet. Maybe she wanted to hear him scream or cry, just as a sign he was still kicking. Something that justified what she was about to do. But there was nothing but the chaotic cacophony of the risen dead against the box that held something they wanted.
Dani sighed as she rose from her crouch. She glanced behind her and took several paces back. One thing she had learned about herself in the days since she had settled in at the storage yard was that she was dogshit with guns. Bob had told her as much. But she didnât have to be good here, just distracting.
She slipped the poker into the pseudo-holster sheâd made on her belt. It was a temporary solution and wasnât designed for anything beyond brute-force functionality. It was just meant to give her a free hand without setting the poker down. As far as she was concerned, it would be best to have a hand on it at all times. The solution was simple: a slit in the belt wide enough for the hooked end of the poker to slip through, but not open enough for the handle to slip through easily.
She unshouldered Bobâs rifle and aimed. Her hands were shaking in her agitation and hurry, and she had to pause. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, feeling more control flow into her grasp. She did her best to line up a shot, and much to her surprise, when she pulled the trigger, she had dropped one of the ghouls instantly, watching a puff of gross spray emerge from the back of the head out of a flap of flesh and bone. The ghoul collapsed so fast it took her a moment to take in the luck here. Of course, Bob didnât see that one.
But the noise, bright and sharp against the dull moans, hoarse groans, scratches, and slaps, did what it was meant to do, and now the ghouls had begun to turn toward Dani â their attention no longer on the potential prize within the trailer.
Dani took a breath and looked down the sights. She had lined up a shot and fired just as the ghoul had tripped over the recently fallen companion. The ghoul hit the ground hard, and the bullet hit the trailer.
âShit! Sorry!â
She paused and took a breath. She lined up another shot as the ghoul on the ground struggled to find some footing. It had tripped in her direction, and its crown was mercifully pointed right at her. She fired â another puff of gore, and then a collapse.
The remaining ghouls were well aware of her presence and seemed to pick up their pace, reaching toward her. Their gaits were still stiff and mostly lumbering, but there was a frenzy to it. It was an urgency she had only seen in apparent excitement, a burst of energy as their target was in reach. Nine rotting killers were converging on her, but thatâs what she wanted, as fucked as that notion was. They were clearing away from the trailer.
âKid, if youâre in there, Iâm clearing a path! Run!â
She did her best to listen for something from inside the trailer over the gargles and moans of the approaching undead, but it was too much to filter through. She took another couple of steps back and lined up a shot on one of the two closest to her position. This ghoul had once been a young man, maybe a teenager. His left arm was broken, and she wasnât sure if it was something heâd had before he turned or not. It was impossible not to think of what they once were. As much as she wanted to see them as monsters, she kept finding herself sucked into the speculation of it all.Â
She pulled the trigger.
Whoever they once were was gone, and their shadow now, too. It was the only thing she and the others could do for them now.
As the ghoul fell forward onto the asphalt, another chorus of wheezing gasps erupted from the companions. For the slightest second, Dani wondered if they were shocked or mourning their fallen companion. She shook her head, shoving that thought as far back as she could, not willing to entertain the notion. It was just the frenzy.
As she began to aim again, the trailer door swung open and slammed into the railing of the access ramp with a clang. The kid emerged, a boy. He couldnât have been older than twelve. She locked eyes with him â it was hard not to â they were so wide and white, contrasting with dirty and bloodied skin. The kid was a mess, and she had no idea what his condition was besides alive, and for now, that was all that mattered. She did her best to smile at him, an attempt to put him at ease, but a pair of the ghouls had already begun to turn toward his position, alerted to the sound of the door. Breathless shrieks erupted, and she watched their bodies shudder as they caught on to the kidâs presence. The kid scanned the ghouls nervously, his gaze rapidly shifting between them and the stranger with a gun.
âRun to the storage place across the street, youâll be safe! Weâre safe!â
The boy said nothing as he bolted. He swung down beneath the railing and dodged the two ghouls. He began to run from them as fast as he could despite obvious exhaustion. Dani began to follow, but his path seemed strange, as though he was running from her.
âHead right, out that entrance! Near that bus!â
âLeave me alone! Go away!â
Dani skid-stopped as she saw the kid run into the trashed entrance of the district building. She watched him climb over stacked desks and shelves, into the darkness of the building.
âShit.â She groaned.
The kid was frightened of her. It was understandable why; companions gone, ghouls everywhere, and a pursuing stranger who had been coming directly for him. From what Edgar had said, the kid seemed to think Edgar had killed the others. How could he not think she was here to finish the job?
Dani glanced behind her, back toward the trailers. The nearest of the remaining ghouls was a good thirty feet away from her position, but that, she figured, was close enough for them to see her enter the building. They might struggle with the pile of office furniture in the doorway, but that was in no way an impenetrable barrier. The darkened entrance made her nervous. Sheâd be entering a dark place, with no sense of the layout, pursuing ghouls, and a scared kid with a gun. It was hard not to spiral out, thinking of all the bad things that could happen. But he was just a kid, and he needed the help.
Daniâs cuts on the top of her thigh began to throb, and she rubbed at them with the butt of Bobâs rifle. She thought back to Julie and her boyfriend in the apartment next door. Dani could have reached out earlier or been proactive. She knew that.
It was like a damn breaking. Steven. His name was Steven. Why had she forgotten? She knew. She knew the whole time. Steven and Julie. Sheâd known him well enough to fuck him once, when Julie was at work. She wasnât sure who had initiated it, nor did it matter. It had happened once. Nothing about that mattered now. All she knew now was sheâd pushed his name away in guilt and shame. Sheâd displaced the tangle of that life and cut and tied around it, like an old net with some shitty repairs just to wring out a little more life from something that didnât need to eb around anymore. But the damage was still there.Â
Steven had volunteered to check the neighboring apartments for some food for the three of them. Dani could have gone too. But it was too awkward, knowing what she had done with Steven. And poor, cute Julie, not knowing what had happened. So he went by himself, climbing down from the demolished stairs. And she and Julie pretended to be good neighbors in the apocalypse, making idle chatter as Dani kept a secret from before the world ended. And then Steven came back, a bite on his arm, and they all thought it was so strange that these sick people were biting one another. It had been nearly two weeks of lockdown. They laughed it off and split their share of the food heâd brought back. She could have helped him gather it, even if sheâd fucked him once, and it would have been awkward to be around him.
Dani hadnât mentioned the broadcast to them the next day â theyâd been so limited and so low quality, most had been nothing of note. She was sure it was some doomsday jockey ranting into his private radio. But the man, whomever he was, warned about the bites. The broadcast was less than a minute, but it was so important. She listened to it and then said nothing. The pain of being around them with what she did before, it didnât matter, but it also did, then, and Dani said nothing, staying in her apartment. She locked herself away as she heard panic and fighting through the dryway behind her couch, listening to Julieâs updates on Steven.
âHeâs not looking good. His breathing is laboured. Iâm scared. Dani, help.â All the markers of the infection were behind the drywall. And yet the shame was too much. Dani sat by herself, knowing deep down what she was hearing and what it meant. And in time, Steven turned. Then Julie turned. And Dani was alone.
One of her cuts had opened again, and she felt warm and sticky blood seep from the broken skin. She glanced down, seeing the small red blotches spreading on her blue jeans.
The ghouls behind her were clearing the distance. Ahead was the entrance to that district office. Inside was the scared kid who shot big Edgar.Â
The rifleâs weight was reassuring, and for a moment, she entertained the thought of turning the gun around on herself. The world was hard enough before it fell apart. She considered checking out back then â what kept her going now? She waited for an answer to emerge. Some sign that there was a reason to keep at any of this. All she received was a stench on the wind, of death and smoke, and the caws of crows.
The wind also carried the coolness of the January air, and she felt a chill. Maybe it was warmer inside the district office?
She sighed, shouldered the rifle, and drew the fireplace poker from the slit in her belt. She marched to the entrance and began to climb into the dark.
Bob had scarcely picked up his rifle, which he had leaning by the side of the RV door, when he noticed that Dani had already cleared the parked car and was in the outer lot, running toward the commotion.
âDani! Fuck, wait for me!â
Bob was still a pretty spry man, given he was mid-60s, but he felt the years catching up the moment he had begun to climb over the hood and past the open gate; he could not scramble or crawl, and instead belly-dragged himself slowly across the cadillac, losing momentum in the pause to pivot so he could throw his legs over the other side of the car, escaping the makeshift barricade. Dani, in her youthful fucking exhuberance, pressed on, leaving him behind. Goddamn kid.
By the time Bobâs sneakers hit the asphalt again, a pair of ghouls had already emerged from around the corner of the front office building and had taken notice. The closest one moaned out of a slackened jaw; the jaw hung limply, not due to death, but rather it was only tethered in position by a few strings of cheek muscle holding it aloft along the right side of the ghoulâs face. It couldnât be helped, as Bob watched the ghoul emerge and approach, he watched the jaw dangle like a catâs toy on a string â possibly at any second, tearing completely, leaving a limp mandible swaying. The ghoul, who was nude from the waist down, no longer appeared to have genitals that Bob could identify. He shuddered at the sight of the dark brown gash of rotting meat that had dripped dark fluid that ran down thin, bare legs.
The other ghoul, by comparison, appeared untouched beyond some superficial rot. That was until its outstretched grasp revealed a hand torn down the center, down to the wrist, between the middle and ring fingers. It was like the poor womanâs hand had been the Thanksgiving wishbone, greedily tugged at by overzealous children. Two loose fingers and a chunk of the rest of the hand hung off the palm loosely, almost unmoving beyond the bounce of motion. The other three fingers wiggled wildly at Bobâs presence.
Dani was out of sight completely by now. Bobâs lungs were itching. There wasnât a fire in them yet.
Bob drew his rifle into position, something instinctual, a muscle memory still very much sharpened from three decades of living with wholesale slaughter. He never believed in the cause, but he did his duty. Everything expected of him. Everything.Â
His reward was shitty lungs and a skull full of bad thoughts. From Viet Cong to the living dead; more faces for haunting the quiet hours.
But he tried not to dwell on them.
The first shot was perfect; the round drilled into the temple of the closest ghoul as it wobbled-walked on unsteady feet, swaying in wide arcs. The ghoul had dropped instantly, and its companion, the woman with the split hand, had not acknowledged its fall, still pushing forward. The ring and pinky fingers, along with their respective fleshy metacarpals, continued to bounce passively.
He couldnât stand to see the things. He drew his rifle again, just as the ghoul approached the remains of its companion. Not looking, she took a wrong step and collapsed right onto the parking space in front of the body. Bob watched silently as the ghoul fell on an outstretched arm and watched it break. The arm did not reduce the impact, as the ghoul smashed face-first into oil-stained asphalt â a crunch and pooling of blood marking the violence.
And yet, the ghoul stirred. Bob didnât know if these things could be disoriented, but it had trouble getting up. It may have been more from the broken arm not bearing weight, but he wondered if the dead could also be rattled like he could after a fall.
But, he supposed, it didnât really matter. He began approaching the commotion, hip-firing into the ghoulâs skull, and making his way to where Dani had run off to. He scratched at the center of his chest â the itch was still there. Always there.
As he walked, Jimmy jogged up from behind him, a golf putter in hand; Jimmy only hung around for a moment to confirm where the commotion was, and sped past.
âIâm not that old,â Bob muttered. He started to jog, eyes darting around, wary of movement.Â
He caught up with them. Dani and Jimmy had settled into crouches, covering Edgar, who was on the ground, belly-down, wrenched back, trying to apply some sort of pressure to the back of his leg. It looked to be near the knee.
âBob, watch out! Someone has a gun!â Dani shouted.
Bob ducked down just off to the side of a thinning brown hedge that ran along the metal-barred gate that encircled whatever this school district building was. Any ghouls on the street outside were a good distance away, and none had managed to wander over toward the storage yardâs gate. Even then, the parked car would provide an obstacle, but Bob wondered if maybe he should have stayed there and held down the entrance for the return of the youngsters.
âIT WAS A FUCKING KID. A GODDAMN KID SHOT ME.â
Bob whirled around. He hadnât heard that high of a tone out of Edgar and was caught off guard, more so by the delivery than the words themselves.
âWhat do you mean you were shot by a kid?â Jimmy asked.
A shot rang out and hit the bus. Everyone flinched. It was a wild shot, but in their direction. The kid must have had some training â most panic fire came off in bursts. This was a single shot, and while the shot was off the mark, it was not quite off the mark. The bus was covering Bob and the others.
âThat little fuck shot me as I was trying to get away from all those dead shits. There was some kind of fight that broke ou-OWWW!â
Edgar stared at Dani, who was checking his leg by unflexing it to get a better sense of the wound.Â
âSorry,â she said. She pulled his leg back further and gingerly felt around the injury. âBob?â
âLooks like a .22,â he added. Could have been much worse, he thought.
Dani continued. âThey missed your knee, thank god, this is just at the top of the calf. Looks like it hurts.â
âIT FUCKING HURTS,â Edgar shouted. âI got clipped by a fucking fifth grader.â
Bob chimed in. âYou said you were running from the dead â where is the kid?â
âStill back there, I didnât get a good look at him,â Edgar grunted. âI saw three people spill out of a building trying to kill one another, and they got overrun. He must have been with that group. Maybe he thought I killed them or something?â
He paused.
âI⊠put them down after theyâd been attacked. They werenât gonna make it. She⊠one of them, her face had been bashed in, and she was drowning in her own blood. I couldnâtâŠâ Edgar stopped as Jimmy gripped his shoulder.
Bob nodded at Edgar, and he kept his expression flat. âMakes sense. Though maybe the kid didnât understand it. You did what you could to help.â
Dani, still crouched, duck-walked toward the front of the bus. Bob watched her take a couple of quick breaths and glance past the front before he could tell her no.
After a couple of seconds, she pulled back, and then the sound of another shot followed. Another hit to the bus.
âGoddamn it, Danielle.â
Again, the kid appeared to be a good shot. Whomever he had been with had taught him some trigger discipline.
âI donât see him, but there are a lot of dead things moving toward a spot. I think he might get overrun if we donât help him.â
Bob said nothing, still thinking about the kidâs aim. Jimmy and Edgar were trying to get Edgar to his feet. Jimmy was having a tough go of it due to Edgarâs heft.
âGuys, that kid is going to get overrun. We need to-â
Jimmy cut Dani off. âWe need to get Edgar back to safety first and figure out a plan. We need to remove the bullet.â
âI can get back myself,â Edgar added. He was sweating, doing as much as he could to not put so much weight on Jimmy, but it wouldnât last. Bob could see the man was tapped out. He was big and strong, but now he came off as helpless.
âDanielle, Dani. We need to get Edgar looked at. We can regroup there and figure something out,â Bob added.
Dani looked up at Bob, who had already risen to his feet, hunched just behind the hedge. He looked back at her, trying to convey that he understood her thinking. And he did, but the kid was too accurate a shot to do this safely with an injured man.
âItâs just a kid,â she pleaded.
âWith a goddamn gun,â Edgar added. Bob sensed the bitter tone. âHeâs in a panic, and youâre gonna get shot if you approach him.â
Bob took a couple of steps toward her. âI donât like it either, Dani, but we need to get out of here. The kid has a gun and a chance. We need to get Edgar to safety and not risk this injury getting worse. Weâre not trading a man for the chance of a kid. We care for our own.â
The itching in his chest had grown more intense. He felt the start of a cough but stifled it by clearing his throat.
âI can go by myself,â she pleaded.
âGoddamn it. Dani, itâs gonna take all of us to get Edgar out of here. Heâs too big for just Jimmy to support him, and we need someone on point for the way back.â
Edgar chuckled, out of breath. âFuck you, Bob.â
Bob flipped Edgar off and flashed the man a smile. Edgar nodded. He was still sweating but seemed to be less panicked.
Dani said nothing, turning from the men, staring toward the front of the bus. Bob wondered if she was planning a path and if she would bolt forward. He hoped not. She sighed. She turned back, clearly pissed.
âShit. Alright, letâs get this done.â She swept over to Edgarâs left and positioned herself under his armpit, bearing as much of his weight as she could, and Jimmy focused on the side with the wounded leg.
âBob, keep the path clear,â Jimmy said.
Bob, still hunched, moved into the street and straightened his back, rifle drawn. His chest began to burn; the stifled cough was seeking its vengeance.Â
As he could make out, there were three ghouls on North Lyon, two coming up from South Lyon. He took up a position in the middle of the street and aimed at the closest of the northern group. He glanced back at the storage yard, wary of motion outside of the rest of his unit.
A sudden coughing fit sent his shot veering off into the top of the ghoulâs chest, sending it stumbling back a step or two, but otherwise did not cut the momentum.
âShit,â Bob continued coughing. âMove!â
He did his best to suppress the cough as Dani and Jimmy, supporting Edgar, came up behind him. With them behind, he was free to shoot again. This time, his mark was felled, and he watched the ghoul collapse onto the street. The two companions noticed nothing about their third, only moaning as they became aware of Bobâs position. They were still a distance off, far enough that there would be time to get to the gate. It was better to be reactive than aggressive, here.
He also hoped that maybe his shot had alerted the ghouls across the street. He hadnât heard anything there. Maybe the kid had managed to run in the moment.
He turned to see Dani and Jimmy struggle under the weight of Edgarâs body on their own from his one-legged hops, like they were stakes to be driven into the asphalt. Both of them were puffing nearly as much as Edgar was.
He whirled south and observed that the other two ghouls had cleared the distance surprisingly fast. He took a few steps back, following his companions, observing them. They didnât seem that fast â he wasnât sure how theyâd gotten so close.
His chest still burned, but the cough had seemed to clear out most of the tension. He wanted desperately to rub his chest, to soothe it as best he could, but he didnât loosen his grip on the rifle.
As Bob and the others made their way into the small outer lot of the Storage Yard, he took point again, waiting for Edgar to crawl over the hood of the car.
Sure enough, the pair from the south rounded past the fence. They looked âfresherâ for lack of a better term, and he wondered how recently they had been living people. Their bodies were still fleshy, and there was no sign of bones just beneath the skin being drawn too tight.
One ghoulâs neck had jagged tears, and the blood was not merely a brown stain, but looked tacky. Maybe a couple of hours old. The other ghoul had a similar, tacky stain around its mouth. Where had this drama played out?
But that was a question for another time.
Bob held his breath, lungs burning. He fired off a shot, hitting the ghoul with the neck injury in the throat. He swore under his breath, took aim, and fired again, this time sending the ghoul reeling back, red blood arcing as it fell back.
Edgar had managed to slide off the hood of the Cadillac and collapsed within the safety of the storage yard. Bob glanced over his shoulder as he watched Sandy march up to the man, simply staring from a yard away from him. He turned back to the ghouls as Jimmy began scrambling over the hood.
âFuck, Sandy, go grab our aid kit,â Jimmy shouted.
Bob steeled himself as Dani approached and stood next to him. He took aim and fired, dropping the second of the South Lyon ghouls. He began to cough again.
Dani placed her hand on the rifle.
âGot two more coming from the north,â he said.
âBob, you need to get over the car. Itâll take you longer. I can handle this.â
âTake me longer?â
Dani said nothing, glancing away from Bob, awkwardly. She didnât want to say it.Â
âHow old do you think I am?â he pressed.
âEighty?â
Bob began coughing again, and he tugged back the rifle. âIâm 64, kid. Iâm not that fucking old.â
âJust get inside.â She snatched the rifle from him. âYouâve been coughing. Go. Iâve got them.â
Bob sputtered between coughs, âAlright, but you follow right after, got it?â
Dani nodded and took a firing stance.
ââEightyâ my ass,â Bob muttered as he approached the gate. He glanced back to see the first of the two North Lyon ghouls round the corner of the storage office.
Bob began to climb the hood of the car and belly crawl back into the yard. As he slid over, he watched Alicia approach, carrying a duffel bag. In the distance, he saw Sandy wheeling around in a golf cart, heading toward the RV where Mary and Alicia had been staying.
âIâve got the bag, Jimmy, here!â Alicia tossed the bag toward the front of the car. Jimmy caught it and unzipped it, dipping into the supplies with what appeared to be a practiced hand. Alicia continued speaking as she jogged toward them. âMs. Gunderson is picking up my mom. She used to work at a clinic. She can help!â
Alicia came to a stop in front of Bob and stared down at Edgar, who was on his side, breathing heavily. His brow was furrowed; he was concentrating on anything but his injury.
âFace down, bitch,â Jimmy told him. Edgar glanced back at him and grunted, doing what he was told. He lay on his stomach.
âAlicia, help me down.â Bob outstretched his arm, and she took it, helping guide him off the Cadillac. His feet had clipped Edgar in the head during the dismount.
âCuĂdate, estĂșpido,â Edgar muttered.
âCĂĄllate,â Bob added, winded. His chest was still hurting. He was breathing fire.
Alicia stared out the gate, toward where Bob had left Dani. âHoly shit.â
Bob glanced up over the hood of the car and saw Dani, standing over two crumbled ghouls. She hadnât fired a shot. She had just finished dislodging her fireplace poker from the skull of one of them, with the rifle strapped over her shoulder. The pokerâs hooked end was caked in gore, and the ghouls at her feet looked as though their heads had been bashed in, and the asphalt was covered in a browning slurry with spacklings of white and grey.
âJesus, kid.â
A distant shot rang out. It had to be the kid again. He was on his own for sure, now. Still measured, still dangerous.
Dani looked toward the direction of the sound â across the street. She looked back at Bob, her eyes wide. Her mouth had been drawn tight.Â
Bob remembered that look from QuĂœ on a joint patrol along the Song Gu Via in â71. Heâd heard a distress call and walked into a trap, quite literally. Bob had never seen a man skewered so thoroughly.
âDonât you fucking dare, Dani!â Bob shouted.
Dani said nothing. She whirled away from the gate and ran off, toward the sound of the gunshot.
With just a little over two months left in the submission window, I wanted to drop a reminder about the current zine project for Supernatural Selection.
If you love aliens and UFOs, we want to see your creative work. You retain the rights to your work; we just want to create a free zine for the masses to reveal that THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE.
Art, poetry, abduction experiences? We're eager to see it all and include as much as we can.
Check out the link below for the zine submission guide!
Supernatural Selection's zine project archive: Currently features Alien Invasion 2026, offering unique visions of strange aliens and UFOs. D
Oh, and while you're at it, why not check out one of our alien-themed podcasts that launched this zine? We have a whole host of UFO and UAP episodes you can listen to.
The worst part of the morning for everyone at the camp was the morning constitutional. Unfortunately, with no running water or indoor plumbing, the bathroom arrangement was a horrid shock to the system and probably one of the things Dani hated most about the apocalypse.
Aside from the ravenous cannibalistic corpses, of course.
The campâs bathroom setup was simple enough: the survivors had cleared out one of the units, and some shelving and boxes enclosed the entrance, with some shower curtains strung across for some privacy. From there, everyone would do their business in an individual bucket that theyâd have to empty later through a gap in the fencing at the western end of the lot.
It was the return of the chamberpot. Things really had regressed.
The closed curtain with a hanging air freshener on display indicated occupied space. For good measure, Bob had found a âPawdon My Messâ sign out of some grandmotherâs unit and hung it inside the unit. Dani had begun to despise the cloyingly sweet puppy on the placard. Everyone gave one another a wide berth when it came to âshit-centralâ as Bob had taken to calling it.
Water was rare. Thankfully, sanitizer and toilet paper were comparatively less rare than water. The group had managed well enough, but soon they would need water beyond what theyâd scavenged. Nobody had bathed in weeks; it had been at least a month since any rain had crossed the sky, and there was no luck with water catches beyond the promise they would eventually work when the weather would finally be on their side.
Dani stepped out from shit-central, holding the bucket away from her, glancing around. She hated this. Even worse, however, was the makeshift latrine on the other side of the fence, right next to Bobâs trailer. Heâd been kind enough to avert his eyes as she approached with the bucket; she disappeared behind a pair of shelves he had set up as a privacy marker.
She drained the bucket down the pipe that drained into the caustic pit. As the shame sluiced through the pipe, landing with an audible plop, she gazed across the street. Thankfully, the lone ghoul she had spied hadnât seemed to notice her. She watched it stumble aimlessly across the road. The last thing she wanted was a walking dead man falling into a pit of shit. It would be too much to bear.
âThe pool chemicals have helped out quite a bit, keeping the rankness down,â Bob said as she stepped out, bucket lighter but no less traumatizing. âI wish we could have dug a bigger latrine, though,â he added.
Dani placed her bucket on the ground behind the shelf and glanced at the old man. âPlease never talk to me if you see me using this spot. Please.â
He saluted her and turned his attention back to his book.
âDoesnât the smell get to you?â She asked.
âIt beats the dead.â
He had a point. Maybe.
âTell you what, though, there is a reason I donât open the back window of the trailer.â
Bobâs trailer, the one he lived in as the âsecurityâ of the storage business, illegally before the end of the world, had been parked against the metal-barred fence to shore up a portion of it. He hadnât objected to the decision to dig the latrine next to him.
Hell, he helped dig the thing over the course of a day, dodging ghouls and taking shifts with Dani, Jimmy, and Edgar.
âDanielle. You got nothinâ to worry about. I donât mind being here at this spot. Itâs where all my books are.âÂ
Dani glanced at the bookshelves he had erected for a privacy wall, and sure enough, he seemed to have added to his library, somehow. The shelves rested comfortably beneath the pop-up he designated as a library.Â
âTruth be told,â he rose from a salvaged recliner, âI have an idea and could use some help with this situationâŠâÂ
Dani reflexively nudged the bucket further back with her foot as he approached.
Bob put his hands on his hips and stared at his feet, a frequent gesture he made when working toward something. Generally, his instincts were good, and she was already intrigued.
âI didnât find a shed or nothinâ in any of these units. I know it was a long shot, but I had hoped maybe some taxman or someone had bought one and never assembled it. If I had a shed, I could rig us up an actual head.â
âHead?â
Bob laughed.
âSorry, old habits. Bathroom. I could rig us up a bathroom that can work with that latrine, especially if we dig it further and get some more of those pool chemicals.â
âNo more shit-central?â
âBaby girl, weâre talkinâ shit-palace.â
Dani and Bob laughed a bit at this.
âIf you can get me something from the Hardware Depot down the road⊠one of those sheds, I can repurpose that toilet we found last week, the one that was still boxed up.â
Bob paused and coughed a bit. It was deep and rattling, less of a sign of imminent danger or illness and more of his general age.
âExcuse me. Iâd also need some pipes and all the plastic bins we can get our hands on, but⊠well⊠I think everyone would feel a hell of a lot better, and once the rains kick in, I think we could be doing pretty well for ourselves.â
Dani nodded. âThat sounds doable. Weâll see when Edgar gets back about arranging a trip down the road.â
âEdgar is still out?â
âYeah, scouting that place across the street.â
âHe seems like a good guy. I hope heâs being careful.â
âMe, too. ThoughâŠâ
âIf youâre gonna say something about him having that gun on him, I get it, kid. I do. But you gotta also think about it from his perspective. Most of us here know nothing about one another.â
âI know, and youâre right. Thatâs why I am not making a big deal of it.â Dani reached into her left pocket and pulled out the copy of Dracula. âBy the way, the kid is done with Dracula and wants to borrow something else.â
âOh god, yeah, absolutely. Has she read The Hobbit?â
âHow the hell would I know?â
âWell, take it to her.â Bob walked over to the shelving and scanned the rows until he found a small, silver-colored paperback featuring a mist-shrouded mountain on the cover. He handed it to Dani.
âThanks, I am sure sheâll love it.â
âYou know, you can take a book, too. Donât think I havenât noticed you only either working or hiding in that Airstream for the past week.â
Dani took that in for a moment, not registering it entirely until she replayed what he had said. She suddenly found herself on the back foot. It was a sudden, uncomfortable shift to be chastised for not reading given the circumstances, but self-consciousness won out, and she wheeled for an excuse.Â
âIâve never been much of a reader.â
âI canât think of a better time to start. No more Simpsons.â
Dani sighed. âYeah, okay. What do you recommend?â She paused, then continued, âAnd if you say anything Amy Tan, Iâll feed you to one of those dead things on the streets.â
âNot a fan?â
âNo, just⊠had a teacher at community college in an English class who kept saying that I was going to love the book, and it was very relatable. Didnât even understand I was fucking Korean. It was embarrassing.â
âGotcha.â Bob scanned the shelves and, after a few moments, added, âOkay, well, how about this?â
Dani took the book from Bob. The cover was faded, torn in a corner, and the spine was so cracked that any of the text was now illegible.Â
She scanned the cover. âShane? Is this a western?â
âYeah, not a fan?â
âDidnât say that⊠I used to watch True Grit with my dad. A lot of John Wayne movies, actually. He was obsessed with the guy.â
âYeah, we talked about The Green Berets a few times. Your dad was â is â a good man.â
âYeah, pretty sure he is dead, honestly,â she replied, almost reflexively.
They were both silent after that. All that broke that stillness was an occasional caw of a carrion bird. Theyâd been so active the past few weeks, and it wasnât pleasant to consider why.Â
âDani, itâs only been a month.â
âAnd look how bad things are, everyone is dead, in hiding, or is fucking with everyone else. I know my mom and dad. They wouldnât make it. He was too trusting of everyone.â
âHe was a good man.â
âSo are you, but you can be a son of a bitch when you need to, Bob. He never could. Mom walked over him. I got away with all sorts of bad shit. I loved him, loved them, but Iâm not holding out hope.â
âIâm sorry, kid; youâre probably right, but damn, I donât like you going there so easily. The minute youâre broken, I think weâre all screwed.â
She took in a sharp, quick breath. How could she tell Bob that she had been broken before the end of the world? She was relieved to have that AirStream with that locking door so that she could just get away from everyone.
Everyone listened to her, spoke to her, but she refused to speak about what was going on in her head. She didnât like that so many decisions about the camp had fallen to her when she wasnât even sure sheâd have a reason for living in a state of perpetual fear for much longer.
âIâm fine, really,â she replied.
The scars on her thighs throbbed â a brief instant of dull pain that ebbed into a dopamine flow of some sense of control, albeit briefly. Sheâd started cutting again; it had started up the day when she had to club her undead neighbors to pulp.
âWell, just give the book a try, okay?â
âSure.â She wasnât sure if she would.
A sharp burst of static made her jump, and she looked to the walkie-talkie that Bob had set on a box near his chair. Aliciaâs voice rang out, âDani, are you there? My momâs leg is really hurting again, and I am not sure what to do.â
Dani walked over and picked up the walkie. âSure thing. Iâll be there in a moment, okay?â
Another crackle, and Sandyâs voice came through: âI thought these were for emergencies?â
Dani couldnât help herself. âYes, weâre dealing with an injury, youâre just being annoying. Over and out.â
Bob snorted.
Theyâd managed to find four of the devices, and they had been very careful about using them. Come to think of it, Dani remembered, the fourth handset was in her trailer.
âI wasnât aware Alicia had one. Did Edgar ask for one earlier?â
Bob had slumped down into his chair.Â
âHe didnât, he said the sound might draw too much attention as he was scouting the place.â
Dani didnât like that. She had already felt foolish for not using the walkies effectively days ago when Edgar had to make the pied piper run around the block to divert the ghouls. Nobody had remembered that they had them as they waited out the moment, and it was a complete shitshow. Since then, theyâd been strategic about who had them⊠mostly. Sandy protested not having one, so she was ostensibly a âscoutâ in the second-story apartment above the office.
âHe should have taken one. He could have taken mine.â
âHey, I told him to grab one, and he said he wouldnât want to risk it.â
âFuck.â
âYep.â
Dani shook her head and began to walk toward the back of the yard. Still a shitshow. A shitshow she had been seemingly pushed into managing. She felt lacking.
As though it were a reminder, the couple of spots on her thigh throbbed again. She embraced the pain, briefly, until the sound of three sudden pops in the air caught her attention. Gunfire.
She had turned and seen Bob scramble to his feet, craning his neck to look through holes in the fencing to get an idea of what had happened. Dani jogged up.
âAcross the street,â he said. âSounded like gunshots, right?â
The sounds had erupted across the street where Edgar had been scouting.
âSounds like he might have found somethinâ, Danielle.â
The Dead Life #21 â Stepping into a Private Drama
Day 25
Edgar had been scouting the school district office for a couple of days now. His shifts at the Kim Family Storage rooftop perch across the street had allowed him to take in the layout and observe the local ghouls and their aimless wanderings.
The entire grounds seemed locked up â all gates had been padlocked shut in a hurry, except for one rolling gate that had nearly been demolished by a school bus that had burst through at some point during the chaos of the first few days of the dead. Now up close to that very same rolling gate, Edgar saw that the bus tires were shredded. Unmistakable brown trails of dried blood marked the dusty yellow surface on the outside and the windows from the inside. Behind one of the brown streaks, there was motion⊠one of the dead was still wandering around within, seemingly pacing up and down the aisle, content with a small domain.
Despite his size, he had managed to stay low on foot, crouching and crawling between vantage points around the block and always warily shifting his gaze around. When these creatures were not alert and moaning, they ran eerily silent. He had nearly had a close call as he crawled past the front office of the storage yard and did not see a ghoul walk out from between a pair of abandoned sedans in the road. That had been the first day of scouting, and it had rattled him so much that he shouted and alerted a few more in the area. He had fled back to the storage lot for safety, and he and Bob had picked up the trio of stragglers that had followed from behind the safety of the metal gate.
Edgar would not make such a mistake again.
Based on Edgarâs observation, the only point in and out that was walkable was the busted rolling gate, but that area also had a pair of nearby wandering ghouls in addition to the ghoul within the bus.
It was manageable, but what concerned him most were the sounds he had heard from inside the district office, echoing out between the buildings of the district campus. Periodically, there was shouting and the clanging of pipes and slamming doors, punctuated by a series of moans from the ghouls. He hadnât heard these things until he had begun poking at the perimeter, and even then, it all sounded so faint.
Edgar was unsure of the disposition of the survivors, if he was hearing what he thought he was, but the clamor was great. He was sure it was more unknown people than he was willing to deal with on his own, especially given the incident with the police car. Heâd been lucky with Bob and Dani, and lucky again with the new ones, Mary and Alicia. Sooner or later, luck would run out.
The good news was that the patterns the ghouls seemed to follow were aimless but also felt almost regular, as though they would reach some boundary, invisible or not, and reverse course. Today would be the day he would test that and work his way into the district grounds to see what he could find.
There was no rush. He wouldnât push it. He wasnât in a hurry to die. He woke up with a start more than once these past few days, remembering the swarm of ghouls clinging to his car a week ago â remembering the back seat of the car and the condition of the woman he was sure heâd known.
Edgar came in low, practically on his hands and knees, following along the side of the bus, out of sight of the closest ghoul ahead. When he was close enough, he squeezed himself under the bus. If it hadnât been due to consistent starvation, he would have been unable to do that. The most fucked of blessings. He was still the biggest person in the camp, but he felt smaller than he had been before everything changed.Â
He shuffled quietly on his belly under the bus and toward the front. Pausing, he watched desiccated feet shuffle back and forth; the sticklike legs were in tattered slacks, and one foot was socked but without a shoe.
He watched the ghoulâs motion until it came close enough. He pulled a small camping hatchet from the back of his pants and grabbed at one of the legs, tugging hard. Instead of dragging it under, the leg snapped off, and the ghoul fell to the ground. Black blood splattered, and Edgar quickly tossed the broken leg away.
âFuck,â he whispered. He scrambled out from under the bus and grappled the waist and back of the ghoul as it thrashed. With an overhead swing, he brought the blade to the back of the skull with a sickening thwack, cracking the rotting skull open before the ghoul even made a sound. Pausing for a second to see if it was done thrashing, he scrambled to his feet to the other side of the bus, peeking out from the front, wary of any movement.
That hadnât gone as planned. Edgar glanced down at a bus tire, noticing it was so shredded that it could not be an easy fix. He wondered about possibly replacing it, but realized where he was in relation to the bus. Sure enough, Edgar stood in front of the open door. He crouched and held silent for a moment. The ghoul inside must have been in the back because there was no sign of it.
He took his hatchet and flicked away some blood. He tapped the handle at the first step, crouching against the side of the bus. The wait was agonizingly long for the ghoul to spill forth, enticed by the sound. When the creature arrived, it tripped down the stairs, crumbling into a dusty, rotten heap. Edgar pinned it down on the ground with his knee on its back and gave it a couple of violent thwacks with the blade. All that was left of his handiwork was a oozy dark puddle and rubbery nuggets of brain matter, looking like the worldâs worst plate of scrambled eggs.
He glanced around, and the other ghouls who âpatrolledâ this space had wandered off. There was a gap if he wanted to push.
The facility would take a long time to clear at this rate. With no ghouls in sight, and his exit seemingly opened behind him, he pushed forward, taking a low run toward the first building, which appeared to be the school bus depot.
The building was a small outbuilding combined with what appeared to be a large carport meant for bus maintenance. There was no sign of wanderers, so he ducked into the small office that seemed to operate as a dispatching area. The place was a wreck, but there were no signs of life except for some smears of blood on a table. Peering out of the office, he saw the school buses that occupied the large parking lot. There were three parked in the large lot, and a lone bus in the bay that appeared to be mid-repair. Other buses had been out on the job when the place had gone into lockdown, Edgar figured. But the remaining three were just what he was hoping to find â if they were still operational.
He turned his attention back to the small room. There were a couple of computers on desks, a couple of phones, a small table, and some chairs. Little else, beyond, but he checked behind the desks anyway. He was surprised to catch sight of a minifridge, but then realized what was in there had probably become little more than sludge.
Curiosity won out, however, and he crouched down, opening the door. The scent of rot punched him in the face, nearly knocking him onto his ass, but the sight of a sealed can of cola won out. He snatched the can up and slammed the refrigerator shut, gagging all the while.
After a few moments where he could collect himself, he studied his can of cola. It had picked up a little odor from the fridgeâs contents, and he ineffectually attempted to wipe away any grime on his pant leg.
He turned the can over and saw it was a diet soda. He grimaced at the idea of a diet soda, but also realized there wasnât much of the stuff left in the world in the long run. Sugar was sugar.
He checked the date on the label, and sure enough, it was good. Worried about what the can may have picked up from the condition of the minifridge, Edgar spat on the rim and then whipped the can as cleanly as he could with a corner of his shirt. He cracked the tab and took a sip of the sickeningly sweet cola. Content, he took it down in a couple of huge gulps.
He finished the last sips and set the can beside him. All this time, there had been no sound coming from anywhere outside of the office. He rose to his feet, glanced out the door, and turned his attention to the bus in the bay.
From what he could tell, the tires appeared fine. He saw the engine hatch was open and couldnât eyeball much regarding the engineâs status right now. He made his way to the side of the bus with the door and nearly shit himself when he saw a body hanging down over the stairs.
If it had been a ghoul, it would have moved â but it was just a body. Was it the driver? Or was he a mechanic? Leaning in, Edgar saw that the man appeared to be neither. He wore what used to be a pale green dress shirt and a tie with brown slacks. The man didnât strike Edgar as someone who actually had much to do with the maintenance or operation of buses. Based on the computers in the room, Edgar figured that the man had a dispatcher.
What was the story here? Edgar had been thinking a lot about the ghouls and bodies heâd seen, wondering about past lives and final moments. He knew why. That car had rattled him in a way he couldnât quite explain. Since then, he couldnât help but consider stories.
The body did not appear to have any major wounds from behind. Curiosity gave way, and Edgar grabbed the shirt at the collar and pulled the corpse from the doorway. He turned the body as best he could, and caught a leathery face frozen in shock and fear. He also saw a screwdriver jammed into the chest.
Edgarâs head spun with theories, but he settled on the story that maybe the dispatcher and the mechanic were fighting about something in the chaos. Maybe the mechanic ended it.
Edgar just wanted things to have some kind of reason.
Edgar plucked the screwdriver free and flicked the gunk from it. It was a longer piece of kit, and he figured it would be worth holding onto. Inside the bus, it was relatively clean, beyond the exposure to open doors and windows.
Yet, there were still no signs of what was wrong with the bus, if anything. The keys were in the ignition, but there was no clear way out without moving the bus from the gate or opening another gate. For now, heâd let this one sit in silence, but took the keys with him. It was lucky that the driver hadnât taken the keys with him.
Edgar made his way to the closest building, which seemed to be some sort of administrative spot. The lot was dotted with other cars, which might be useful â he clocked each one and added it to the mental inventory he had been taking. He kept his creeping, crouched movements, ducking past wandering dead, and made his way to a glass doorway.Â
The doorway itself was in good condition, but he noticed that things had been piled up against it on the other side, serving as a makeshift barricade. He saw some desks, chairs, and boxes. The handles of the doors had been lashed by what looked like a belt and jacket.
The barrier was just about waist-high, and fabric had been strung across to hide anything within, outside of the small slivers of space between the barricade and the fabric. Edgar wasnât sure if the ghouls could see anything, but he understood the impulse. Heâd considered lining the fencing with cardboard back in the storage yard.
Realizing heâd come this far already, Edgar kept out of sight and approached the door, placing his ear to it.
Sure enough, there were voices.Â
Raised voices.Â
Shouting.
Gunshots.
âFuck, fuck.â Edgar scrambled away from the door, falling over a couple of times, dashing his way back toward the garage area, keeping as low a profile as possible. It was amazing he hadnât drawn any ghoulish attention in the scramble so far.Â
Sure enough, dreadful moans seemed to echo all around, and the sound of muffled gunfire from inside continued to pick up. He ducked around the corner into one of the bays and watched as shattering glass scattered over the walkway where he had just been, and office furniture and boxes tumbled out with a pair of people.
Edgar watched the two run for their lives, a man and a woman. Both were thin. The man, already bloodied and clutching an arm, seemed to shield the womanâs body. The womanâs shirt was torn, a breast exposed.
A third man spilled out of the same doorway and fruitlessly pulled a revolver trigger over and over. His face was covered in blood, and his steps were lurching. Out of ammo, he picked up his pace like a crazed beast, striking the first man on the head. He overtook the woman, grabbing her by the hair and throwing her to the ground.
Edgar saw him climb on top of her and club her with the revolver; the other man, who had been brained, quickly tackled the man with the revolver, clubbing at him.
Edgar threw himself out from behind the wall of the garage and ran toward the scene as the two men struggled over the woman, but four ghouls had begun approaching them from behind some parked cars.
âWatch out!â
Edgar waved and cried at them, but the two men played out their drama, ignorant of him. It was too late; the ghouls converged and fell upon the struggling men, tearing them apart.
Edgar watched in horror as greasy fingertips slashed at the gunmanâs neck, and hot blood burst forth. In a second, another pair of hands grabbed at his scalp and began pulling out clumps of bloody hair. The gunman hadnât been as fortunate with two ghouls falling upon him and sinking rotten, yellow teeth deep into the neck and shoulder. Edgar was shocked at how strong and quick the monsters moved at the prospect of fresh flesh.
Each man was stripped of skin and tissue by teeth and fingertips. Heâd watch a ghoul take a bite and tear strips and ribbons of flesh free, only to see flesh roll out of open mouths, where the ghouls would then go back, sinking in their teeth even deeper. Edgar had never seen the things feed so directly. He felt like he was about to vomit, but Edgar swallowed down the acidic bile that rose in his throat and cautiously approached the group to see if he could at least help the woman.
The ghouls were distracted by their eating frenzy, and the sounds of the menâs screams masked Edgarâs heavy steps. As he was within a few feet of the gruesome scene, he noticed the woman moving. Her face, however, told a different story and amounted to little more than a bloody bowl â he swore he could see white teeth in a puddle of flesh where a face used to exist. The gunmanâs revolver had smashed her nose and teeth, and she was drowning in her blood. Her gargles terrified Edgar.
He closed the gap between them and, tears in his eyes, brought the axâs blade down on her face, smashing what was left of her head into three wet chunks. He cried as he put her out of her misery and, when finished, whirled around and smashed at the skull of the closest ghoul. His swing was wild and glanced off bone. He doubled down and struck again, sinking the blade deep into the ghoulâs temple.
Edgar flew into a rage, striking any head he saw in a pile, and after a few moments and a couple of near bites, had brained every single one of the ghouls and the men for good measure. He instinctively grabbed the revolver and absentmindedly pulled the trigger a half dozen times, hoping at least a single shot was left.
There was nothing there. He knew that.
But the compulsion was too great.Â
He tucked the gun into his pants and noticed the commotion had begun to pull in a few stragglers. How had there been even more of these fuckers hidden away? He grabbed the long screwdriver from his belt loop and clumsily rose to his feet, winded.
This scouting trip had become a catastrophe. He wouldnât chance the district office. It was time to leave.
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