by JL Bryan
Chapter Sixteen
Aoide and Neus stared at the map Neus had sketched at the library. After another day of walking, they'd spent the previous night in a bug bog, sleeping inside hollow logs in the hope that nobody would find and bother them.
“It's so cold this morning!” Rhodia complained, stomping caked mud from her feet.
“Breakfast will warm you up,” Skezg said. He plucked a wooly horned millipede from a log and offered it to her.
“Gross!” Rhodia said.
Skezg shrugged, popped the millipede in his mouth, and chomped on it.
“We should make it to the border of the Hauntlands today,” Rhodia said. “There's a town there...Ghoston. Maybe someone will let us crash in their yard or something tonight.”
“I don't like the sound of that town.” Rhodia hugged herself.
“That's where the road is taking us,” Neus said. “If we go around, it's all wilderness. And the idea of wandering wild places on the border of the Hauntlands...”
“Fine!” Rhodia stomped her feet again to warm them. “I can't believe I'm saying this, but let's get walking. I feel all cold and stiff and goopy.”
They stretched their sore arms and legs, then followed the short path through the bog, back to the cobblestone road.
The four of them walked until about midday, when they stopped at a mossy spring to refill their canteens with fresh water.
“Watch out for the slapper fish,” Neus said as he dipped his gourd into the water.
“The what?” Skezg asked, dunking in his big wooden canteen. A blue fish, longer than Aoide's arm, leapt out of the water. It had a very wide, very thick tail, with which it slapped the ogre across the face. Then it dove back into the spring.
“My eyebrow!” Skezg shouted, stumbling back and clutching the side of his face.
Another fish leapt up and slapped Rhodia wetly on the arm. She screamed and dropped her glass bottle and cork into the water as she ran away.
More slapper fish erupted from the water, smacking Aoide and Neus all over until they ran out of the water. A school of slapper fish was jumping out now, slapping into each other before tumbling back into the water.
“I hate nature,” Rhodia grumbled, rubbing the red streak on her arm where the fish had slapped her.
For lunch, they found a few shrubs of wild saltberries, which were almost ripe and didn't taste horrible, but they were very salty.
Much later, as the sun crept low in the sky and one of the moons was already visible, they rounded a bend in a road and saw they were approaching city walls made of rocks and mud brick. The road ran directly into the front gates of the city, which stood open.
“Is that Ghost Town?” Rhodia asked.
“Ghoston,” Aoide said.
“Whatever.” Rhodia rolled her eyes. “I hope they're friendly.”
“They have their gate open,” Neus said. “That's a good sign.”
The four of them walked closer to Ghoston. The big copper gates swung and squealed in the wind.
“Doesn't it seem kind of quiet?” Rhodia asked.
“There's nobody going in or coming out,” Neus said.
“Maybe it's a...holiday or something?” Aoide said.
The little city remained completely quiet as they approached the half-open gate. Through it, they could see that the main avenue through town was deserted. The low buildings of brick and wood glowed a shade of burning orange in the light of the setting sun. Some of the window shutters and doors were open, and some of these clung into place by a single hinge.
The four of them stopped at the gate.
“Where is everybody?” Neus asked.
“I got a bad feeling,” Skezg said. “This is scary.”
“Great,” Rhodia whispered. “We bring a big, tough ogre with us, and he's the scaredy-cat.”
“If you're not scared, why are you whispering?” Aoide asked Rhodia.
“Who said I wasn't scared?” Rhodia whispered. “I think we should go back.”
“That would be giving up,” Aoide said. “Who wants to go first?”
They looked at each other. Nobody volunteered.
“Fine,” Aoide sighed. “I'll lead. But next time, it's somebody else's turn.”
Aoide took a deep breath and stepped through the open gate, looking around to see if anyone or anything was lying in wait to attack her. Nothing popped up to grab her, though. The town just looked empty. An overturned wooden cart lay in the middle of the street, with a few dried strands of hay clinging to one corner.
“Uh, hello?” Aoide called out.
“Shh!” Rhodia snapped. “They'll hear you.”
“That's the idea,” Aoide said. Louder, she said, “We're just passing through. No trouble, all right?”
The empty street and hollow windows stared back at her.
“Come on,” Aoide whispered. “Let's get going.”
Reluctantly, her three bandmates followed her into the town.
They walked side by side down the wide street. Aoide noticed a few cobblestones were missing, as if they'd been pried loose and stolen. The deeper they walked into Ghoston, the more holes there were in the road.
A cold, screeching wind blew down the street.
“That sounds like a banshee,” Skezg said. The ogre's teeth chattered in fear.
“You don't know what a banshee sounds like,” Rhodia whispered.
A loud crash rang out through the street, and they jumped. There was a rusty squeal, and then the crash sounded again. Neus pointed—it was just a loose window shutter on the second floor of what looked like a tavern, banging over and over again.
“Why doesn't somebody make that stop?” Rhodia whispered.
“There must be nobody home,” Aoide said.
“Why does it sound creepy when you say that?” Rhodia whispered.
They reached a wider area, a plaza that looked like it might have been a market. There were a couple of broken wooden carts and tables, a faded slice of canvas flapping on the skeleton of a wood-frame tent, a smashed barrel that rocked back and forth in the wind. They heard a sound like whispering, and then saw torn scraps of paper blowing across the road, until they caught in the dry depression of a missing cobblestone.
Neus knelt to pick them up.
“Don't touch those!” Rhodia gasped.
“Why not?” Neus held them up in the dwindling orange sunlight. “They don't say anything. If there was any writing, it's faded away.” He dropped the paper scraps and let the wind carry them off.
“I hate this place,” Rhodia whined.
“It's just an abandoned town,” Neus said. “I don't know why anyone would want to live so close to the Hauntlands, anyway.”
“It's not just abandoned,” Aoide said.
“What do you mean?” Skezg asked her.
“If it were just abandoned, it would be overgrown,” Aoide said. “There would be pokeweed and grass growing up between the street cobbles. There should be moochvine on the buildings—the wooden ones, at least. Maybe some dustbirds. But there's nothing here.”
“Nothing alive,” Neus whispered.
“Stop it, you two!” Rhodia snapped. She folded her arms tight and rubbed her goosebumps. “For realsies.”
“Yeah, let's just stop talking about it,” Skezg said. “Can we do that?”
“Everyone just keep your eyes out for anything unusual,” Aoide said.
“This whole place is unusual,” Rhodia replied.
“I mean something alive, and moving,” Aoide said. “Especially if it's moving fast toward us. Especially if it has big fangs or claws—”
“Stop that! You're spooking me.” Skezg the ogre was quivering.
“Sorry, Skezg. Let's just keep moving,” Aoide suggested.
They continued on through the empty plaza. The avenue narrowed, and more and more cobblestones were missing. The band passed more empty buildings. One of them was very large, maybe four stories, with
elaborately sculpted columns depicting fairies and other Folk—maybe it had been a theater. Its remaining wooden doors drifted back and forth in the wind, their hinges screaming.
As the sun dropped out of sight, footsteps echoed all over the street.
“What is that?” Rhodia whispered.
The four of them stopped walking, but the slow, heavy footsteps continued, as if invisible people were walking toward them from every direction. Aoide looked around, and down the side streets as far as she could, but she didn't see anyone coming.
“I can't take it anymore!” Skezg shouted. The ogre started running. As if this were a starting gun, the others took off after him, Aoide and Rhodia flying just above the street.
They reached the western gate of Ghoston, which was wide open to the deep black forest beyond. The Hauntlands. An overgrown dirt road led into the forest.
Skezg stopped, staring out into the darkness.
“Here we are,” Aoide said. They all stopped at the gate, but the footsteps continued behind them, growing closer and louder.
“I don't want to go into the Hauntlands at night!” Rhodia complained. “I'm tired, too.”
“Would you rather spend the night here in Ghoston?” Aoide asked her, and Rhodia shivered, looking back over her shoulder.
Skezg screamed and ran out through the gate. Aoide and the others followed him down the narrow dirt road into the forest.
“What happened?” Aoide asked Skezg. “Why are you running?”
“Why are you running?” Skezg gasped in return.
“Wasn’t there a ghost?” Rhodia asked.
“I didn’t see a ghost,” Neus replied.
They slowed down a little, but kept moving, away from Ghoston and into the moonlit dark of the Hauntlands.