The Forest of Hands and Teeth

by Carrie Ryan

  Every now and again flames drop like liquid onto the Unconsecrated, which become walking furnaces lighting each other ablaze, spreading the inferno to the structures in the village.

  “Maybe the flames will kill them all and then we can escape,” Cass says, her chin resting on Jacob's convulsing body.

  The men don't answer. Instead, they stand frozen, as if action would be too risky. I can already see blisters spreading across Jed's right arm.

  Our world is filled with heat and light and finally Travis says so softly that his words are almost drowned, “One of us will have to get through them. One of us will have to go to the path to tie off the rope. We have to get off the platforms and onto that path.”

  Cass squeezes Jacob, slipping her hands over his ears as Jed and Harry nod.

  “And it can't be you,” Harry says to Travis, “because of your leg.” I roll his words around in my head, searching for the accusation, but I don't find it.

  “I could go,” I whisper. I wait for their objections, pray for them, and after too many heartbeats they come. Simple, straightforward.

  “No, you won't go,” they say. “It will be one of us.”

  Jed and Harry don't look at each other as they contemplate which one of them will sacrifice himself for the rest of us.

  “I can at least get the rope,” Travis mumbles as he hobbles back down the platform, back toward the fire that grows ever closer.

  Jed places his arm over Harry's shoulder and Harry places his arm around Jed's waist and they walk a distance away, bending their heads together.

  They look as if they're in prayer and I wonder if this is all my fault because I stopped believing in God so many months ago. I wonder if I gave up my belief in the ocean, if I gave up Travis, if I gave up everything that stood in the way of me and God—if I could save us.

  If I could save them.

  Travis slips around Jed and Harry huddled together and kneels awkwardly at the edge of the platform closest to the Forest of Hands and Teeth and the path that could be our salvation.

  I crawl over next to him and help him tie the knots.

  “I don't understand how this will work,” I tell him, my fingers shaking and fumbling.

  “It will work the same way it worked to get us over here. But someone will have to be on the other side to tie off the rope,” he says.

  He places his hands over mine, the feeling so warm and familiar. “Those days back there, in the house. That is my world. That is my truth,” he says. “That is my ocean.”

  In his eyes I can see the jumble of words that roll through his heart and when he opens his mouth he says only, “I wish I could have kept you safe.”

  He trails his finger across my lips and then stands to take the rope to Harry and Jed, to prepare them for the crossing.

  My legs buckle until I'm no longer kneeling and before I understand what's happening a figure runs past me, his steps uneven, and launches from the edge of the platform, flying out over the ring of Unconsecrated below us and landing with a thud and a roll. In each hand he carries a blade, the firelight glancing off the metal.

  He recovers, stands and then begins to stumble toward the Forest, toward the gate and the path, my brightly colored braided rope tied around his waist and trailing out behind him.

  At first he's alone and the Unconsecrated don't notice his presence. But then they move toward him. They sense him, crave him.

  “Noooo!” I yell as I crawl forward and grasp the edge of the platform, as if I can take the braid in my hands and yank him back to safety.

  The sobs tear at my body but I don't let them out. Instead, prayers rush from my lips as I repeat over and over and over again, “Please, please, please, please.”

  He stumbles, he falls, he gets up but he can't keep up the pace of the sprint. His leg is too weak. His gait is too lopsided. His body is too broken.

  “Please, please, please, please …”

  The Unconsecrated reach for him, their fingers pulling at him, their feet stumbling across the braided rope. He's constantly yanked back, brought to his knees as the rope is pulled tight.

  “Please please please please …”

  I can hear him yell when the first one reaches him. He lashes out at them but there are too many. He embeds a blade in one and before he can pull it free he's pushed back, stumbling. I can see the blood spread out against his shirt. My brother begins to tug at my shoulder, trying to pry me away from the sight, but all I know is that as long as I don't take my eyes off Travis he'll be okay and will make it to the fences unharmed, uninfected.

  He stumbles again and the Unconsecrated begin to pile on top of him.

  “Please, please, please.” I fill every word with my life, willing to trade mine for his.

  An arrow whizzes past my head and then another and another and another. Each piercing a different Unconsecrated. They begin to fall and finally Travis emerges from underneath the pile, stumbling toward the gate.

  Harry stands behind me, his crossbow a blur of action, his cheeks pale and wet but his aim determined and true. Leaving me, Jed goes to his side, takes up a second crossbow, and together they begin to fell the mass of Unconsecrated.

  Joy erupts inside me, belief and salvation so pure I feel as if light pours from every inch of my body.

  For a moment, for one exquisite and blinding moment, I have complete and utter faith that Travis will make it to the fences unharmed. That we'll live and that I will see what's beyond the Forest. That I will see the ocean. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping to contain the feeling.

  And that's when Travis falls again. That's when his screams reach my ears and I crumble, my arms no longer strong enough to hold up my empty body.

  “Please,” I whisper one last time. Travis stands, staggers, reaches the fence and throws open the gate. A few Unconsecrated follow him through before he can get it closed but Harry and Jed dispatch them in short order, one arrow after another bringing them down.

  Travis is finally alone and safe. Blood covers his clothes and even from here I see his chest heaving. And then he raises a hand and waves and I feel the shudder of the platform as Harry and Jed fall to their knees behind me.

  “No,” I whisper, unwilling to accept any of this.

  It takes him ten tries before he's able to lob the end of his braided rope up and over the solid branch of a large tree growing beside the path.

  We feel the flames growing stronger at our backs as he begins to pull the rope across the void.

  As one we hold our breath. The heat sears us. Argos whimpers and Jacob shudders as the thick rope inches across until finally Travis pulls it tight and ties it off.

  It sways back and forth. Our salvation. Travis collapses against the tree and before anyone can stop me I heave my legs over the rope, cross my ankles and begin to pull myself hand over hand away from the burning platforms. I hear Harry call my name, I feel him reach for my feet, but I lash out, refusing to be brought back.

  “It's not safe yet!” Harry calls out. “You should let one of us go first, just in case!”

  I shake my head. Concentrating on one hand and then the other. Ignoring the burning skin under my knees.

  “You don't even have a safety rope!” he yells out.

  I grasp the rope tighter and let my head fall back just a bit so that I can see Travis, my world upside down. He is leaning against the tree and slowly, as I watch, his head slumps to his chest.

  “No!” I yell.

  “You don't even have a weapon if he turns!” Harry shouts.

  But I don't let their words distract me—I concentrate only on one hand in front of the other. The strain in my muscles. The rope splitting through my flesh. I focus on Travis and my need to touch him, to feel him, to heal him.

  When I reach the other side I let my legs drop, blood beginning to pool back into my feet. I am facing the platform, Jed and Harry and Cass and Jacob highlighted by the flames.

  I look down, my neck straining between my arms. To my left is the
Forest of Hands and Teeth, where the Unconsecrated are beginning to gather, beginning to shamble toward us. To my right is the path leading into the darkness.

  Directly below me is Travis, his body bloody, his arms up-stretched, and I am suddenly paralyzed with fear. Fear of the way he stands, the way he reaches for me, the way the blood cakes on his skin, the way he waits below—as if to devour me.

  My mouth opens to scream but no sound comes out. I am hanging by my hands, my body heavy, and it's hard to breathe. I feel my fingers begin to slip, the blood from the rope digging into my skin making my flesh slick. I try to regain my grip, to heave my legs back up, but my arms are too tired. My muscles shake with the effort of just hanging and I'm angry at my haste in not allowing Harry to wrap a harness around me.

  Tears blur my eyes as I focus on Travis below. His fingers open and close. Finally, he lowers his arms until they hang limply at his sides, his effort expended.

  With a whoosh I allow myself to drop and I crawl to him. He's leaning against the trunk of the tree just inside the gate. His body shakes. His breaths come ragged and sharp. But he is still alive.

  “Travis!” I yell as I pull him close to me. I rock him like a small child. “You'll be okay,” I tell him. “You're okay.” My chin rests on his hair, his head tucked against my chest.

  I can feel his blood seep into my own flesh.

  “Why did you do this, Travis?” I ask. “Why?” My voice cracks and I can feel his lips moving but cannot hear any words.

  His eyes roll back into his head.

  I shake him now, almost violently. “You can't!” I shout in his face. “I won't let you!”

  A smile twitches at the corner of his lips where a trickle of blood begins to trail down to his chin.

  “We'll fix this,” I tell him. “Maybe there's another village. Maybe there's a healer. Are you sure you were bitten? Are you sure they're not scratches like mine?”

  His small chuckle stops time, pulls us into our own world back before this village and the breach. Before his broken leg.

  Back when we were children. Before we knew of the world.

  “It wouldn't have mattered if they were scratches or not,” he says, his voice like liquid. “I was bitten during the escape from the house.”

  My limbs go weak, everything inside me folding in and collapsing on itself.

  “I was already dead,” he says, opening his eyes.

  I can only mouth the word Why. I cannot find my voice, cannot force sound from my shuddering body. I swallow. I rub my hand over his forehead, his skin slick with sweat and blood. I bring my head down to touch his. My mouth hovers over his and all I can think about is the days we spent together in the Cathedral when I would tell him stories about the ocean.

  “Let me pray for you,” I whisper. My nose runs; my eyes are swollen with tears.

  “You were never very good at praying,” he says with a small laugh. “That was never what drove you. It was always the stories.”

  I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut. “It was you,” I say.

  He laughs softly again, more like an exhale than laughter. “I wish it could have been,” he says.

  I pull him tighter into my lap, wanting to squeeze the infection from his body, to clean his blood with my love. “I'm sorry,” I whisper. “I'm so, so sorry.” The sobs roll over me now so that I can barely hear him tell me that he knows.

  All I can think about is how I have wasted my last day with Travis being angry at him. That I should have spent this day memorizing his face. Counting the freckles on his shoulders.

  I realize that I will never again see him when he smiles at me with the sun in his face, making him squint and bringing out the little wrinkles beside his eyes. I will never watch him walk, the rolling gait of his limp.

  I will never feel the press of his palm against my cheek.

  Suddenly, all I can think about are all the things I don't know about him. All the things I never had time to learn. I don't know if his feet are ticklish or how long his toes are. I don't know what nightmares he had as a child. I don't know which stars are his favorites, what shapes he sees in the clouds. I don't know what he is truly afraid of or what memories he holds closest.

  And I don't have enough time now, never enough time. I want to be in the moment with him, feel his body against mine and think of nothing else, but my mind explodes with grief for all that I am missing. All that I will miss. All that I have wasted.

  That we will not spend our lives together. That I do not have enough time to memorize him and even now I am forgetting him.

  That I am not ready for this, not ready for his death.

  “Tell me about the ocean, Mary,” he says. “Tell me about how it's the last place untouched by all of this.”

  I shake my head. “The ocean is nothing,” I say. “It's just like the rest of the world.”

  He takes my chin in his hands, his grip surprisingly strong. “Promise me you'll go to the ocean,” he says.

  I shake my head. “But you said—”

  “Forget what I said. Promise me you will taste the salt for me.”

  I want to pull back time, to grab it and stop it from unraveling. I want to gather it to me and hold it close and keep this moment from slipping away. But I can't. And Travis's hand falls from my face.

  “No,” I say, clutching at him, trying to keep him with me. “I choose you. I choose you over the ocean.”

  “Promise me, Mary,” he says again. This time his voice is weak, his breath rattling.

  “I love you,” I tell him. But he does not answer. Because he is dead.

  Then I'm being pulled away from him.

  “No,” I protest but the arms dragging me back are too strong. It's Harry and he drops me onto the other side of the path. I scramble back up.

  “You must leave him,” Harry says, pushing me back down.

  “Get out of my way!” I shout back, digging my fingers into the dirt as I claw my way back to Travis.

  Harry grabs my shoulders. “Don't you understand? Travis is infected. He's about to turn!”

  Jed is standing behind me with a scythe. He's waiting, ready for Travis to turn. Ready to end it. I reach for the gleaming blade. He must think I'm trying to stop him, trying to keep him from Travis, because he struggles against me.

  “Mary!” Harry tries to pull me back from Jed but I shove him with such force that he stumbles down the path, crashing into Cass and tumbling to the ground.

  “Give it to me,” I tell Jed.

  “He has to be put dow—”

  “Give it to me!”

  “Mary, you should not be the one to—”

  I lunge for the scythe, screaming, and this time I'm able to grasp its handle. I'm the one who loves him. I'm the one responsible for his infection. I'm the one he was trying to save, the one he sacrificed himself for.

  “Mary, let me—”

  “Release it.” My voice is a growl.

  His hand slips from the handle and in one motion I swing the scythe away from him and toward Travis.

  I want nothing more than to close my eyes, to pretend that none of this is real. Everything just a nightmare. But as I swing the blade toward Travis, I see his eyes open.

  Those impossibly green eyes.

  He used to hunger for me with those eyes but never in such a vicious way as now.

  I bury the scythe in his neck, shuddering as I feel it slice through his spinal cord. His eyes lose focus as if he sees through me. His body falls limp, every muscle releasing at once.

  He is gone. Forever.

  Blood slips down his chest and I am sobbing on the ground.

  Jed takes the scythe and picks me up. I'm too weak to resist. I want to reach out and grab Travis's hand, to feel him one last time, to let his fingers lace through mine. But he is too far away.

  Already I forget what he smells like, the smoke of the fire searing away everything.

  Jed carries me from his body.

  “No!” I yell. I scream.
I beat against Jed. I can't even draw in enough air to sob. My memories of Travis are jumbling, rolling together, twisting, corroding.

  “You did what needed to be done,” he says. As if those words could be any comfort.

  “I loved him,” I whimper. “He was everything. Why couldn't I see that he was everything?” Regret eats away at me, stripping through my veins as if to replace my blood.

  “I know,” Jed says. I'm thrown over his shoulder and I can feel how his body shakes and I know that he is crying. For me, for Beth. And I wonder if there was ever a crueler world than this one that forces us to kill the people we love most.

  As the days pass we do nothing but walk, trying to put distance between us and the fire devouring its way toward us. We each deal with the loss of Travis in our own way.

  Cass turns to Jacob and her love becomes fierce. It's as though he's her own child. As if this child has never belonged to another woman and she is the first. She clings to him. He's the only one who has pierced through her veil of silence.

  Harry has taken for Cass. He is the one who ensures that she eats what meager rations we have, saved from the fire and dwindling with every step. He is the one who carries Jacob when Cass's arms become weak. When she stumbles under the weight of it all.

  I drift down the path alone. A wanderer. Not noticing anything. Stumbling over the smallest roots, veering toward the fences and the Unconsecrated. I stare into nothing. Wondering how it can be that I have lost everything in my life but this journey. This hope that there is an end.

  That this path will lead us there.

  It's Jed who pulls me back to center. Who takes my hand in his when I drift toward the fences and who gently leads me onward. It's he who acknowledges the sorrow on my face. Who understands why the tears silently flow even now, three days after leaving Travis.

  We have both lost our loves to the Unconsecrated. Both been forced to kill.

  The fire still burns behind us, pushing us forward. Ash covers everything, turning the world around us gray and desolate. The air is thick, hard to breathe, which causes our steps to become slower and slower.