Gunwitch

by David Michael

  She closed her eyes, but the image remained. And she could not to stop the sound of his screams. Even her own screams were not enough.

  Where was Miss Rose? How had she not heard? How could Miss Rose have left her to die like this?

  “Put her down,” said a man’s voice. Not unfriendly. Familiar. “Now.”

  She noticed that Private Tishman no longer screamed. But she could still hear the gurgles that had been between his screams.

  The hands put her down. Margaret did not dare open her eyes. She did not want to risk that she was mistaken. She would rather not know. She just ran toward the voice. “Mr. Thomas!” she shouted. “Mr. Thomas! It’s me. It’s me.”

  She ran into a body, warm not cold, and arms, warm not cold, wrapped around her. “There, there, Margaret,” the body said, still sounding like Mr. Thomas. “I’ve got you now. You’re safe.”

  Finally, Margaret opened her eyes and forced herself to look up. Mr. Thomas smiled down at her.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s really me. Did you think I had abandoned you?”

  Margaret squeezed him around the chest. “Oh, Mr. Thomas …” She wanted to tell him that she had thought he was dead, and what she had just seen, but nothing came out but sobs.

  He held her, one hand stroking her hair. “It’s going to be alright,” he said. “Just calm down. Everything will be alright.”

  She did not know how long she cried like that. It might have been just a few minutes, but she felt better. She opened her eyes, and let go of him. “I–we–thought you were dead …” Her voice trailed off as she saw that more of the black creatures now stood in the moonlight, ranged around the two of them.

  “Don’t you worry about these ugly brutes, Margaret,” Mr. Thomas said. “I’ll protect you from them.” He smiled at her, and winked. Then he took his pistol from its place on his belt and pointed it up at the sky, as if he were going to shoot down the Moon. But he did not fire. He shouted, his voice louder than anything Margaret had ever heard.

  “Rose!” he called. “Are you out there, Rose?” He paused, and spoke to Margaret again in his normal voice. “Rose is here, isn’t she?”

  Margaret did not know what to say. “Mr. Thomas … ?”

  “Don’t you worry about a thing, Margaret,” he said. “We’ll find her.” Then his voice boomed again. “Surely, Rose, you didn’t leave this little girl all alone?” He looked around with exaggerated motion, gun still held above his head, and his eyes fixed on something behind Margaret. “Oh! Here we are!” His voice thundered, louder than the waterfalls. “You didn’t leave her alone after all. You left her a bit of a nursemaid.”

  Her eyes moved from Mr. Thomas, turned around as she followed his gaze, and saw what was left of Private Tishman. He was little more than a skeleton now. Even his face had been shredded. His bones gleamed wet and black under the moonlight. Around the bones, scattered like fragments of clothing were the remains of the man’s flesh and organs.

  “But I’m afraid it’s only a bit of him that is left. One of the soldiers, I see. Not the good major. A pity. Margaret is quite safe, though.”

  Margaret fell to her knees, her mouth opening and closing, silently protesting the sight and the horrible words of Mr. Thomas. Massive heaves threatened to turn her inside out as she emptied the meager contents of her stomach on her hands, and on the ground in front of her. Her hair hung around her face, fouled by spittle. Her hands shook as she wiped them on her shirt and pushed her hair back. She looked up at Mr. Thomas standing over her, and the creatures surrounding them. She looked down again, focusing on the ground in front of her. She did not feel safe.

  Mr. Thomas continued talking but the words interfered with one another in her head. All she made out was Janett. “No,” she whispered. “Don’t answer him, Janett. Don’t …”

  “Did you say something, Margaret?” Mr. Thomas asked. The words did not try to engulf her. He had squatted beside her, and put his left hand on her shoulder.

  She shook her head. “No,” she whispered. Not answering him. Still beseeching Janett to stay hidden. “Don’t …”

  His hand squeezed her shoulder then let go. He brushed a stray strand of hair from her face with his fingertips. “Everything will be just as it should be, Margaret,” he said. “Just be patient.” He stood again. To the sky, he shouted, “I know you’re out there, Rose. I know you can hear me.”

  Movement around them had drawn Margaret’s attention. A man with black skin that seemed to soak up the moonlight leaving only a shadow of his form suddenly appeared next to Mr. Thomas. Two red lights shown from his eyes should have been.

  Mr. Thomas stood and faced the man. “Any sign of how they got here?”

  “No, Duke Blackwood.” The black man’s voice was like dry paper crackling into flame. “I am certain they crossed the river, but the ithambofis have obscured any definite sign.”

  “Keep looking. They are around here somewhere.” The black man faded into the shadows again without a word. To the sky, Mr. Thomas said, “I’m impressed, Rose. You really did go native. I wonder what that’s like, in all its particulars.” He held out his hand. “Take my hand, Margaret,” he said softly.

  Margaret stared at his hand in front of her face. She saw a man’s hand, held out to her, a life rope cast to her. She felt as if she were drowning. Too much had happened. Bloody fights and lightning and fire and running, so much running. She was tired. But her memories would not stop. The creatures and Private Tishman dying. She was going under, too tired to stay above it anymore. But the rope in front of her, Mr. Thomas’ hand, would not pull her out. It came from below, wanting to pull her down further.

  In front of her, one of the thin black creatures reached down and picked up the wet and gristly bones that had once been Private Tishman. The creature slung the bones over its shoulder. Margaret expected the bones to fly apart and she almost screamed. But the private’s skeleton held together, ribcage and head and arms and hands dangling down the back of the creature.

  “Look at me, Margaret,” Mr. Thomas said. When she continued to stare at the creature with the bones, he used his thumb and forefinger to grasp her chin and turn her face to look at him. He had squatted in front of her again, his face level with hers. “Trust me, Margaret. Everything will be as it should be.” He smiled. “I promised I would take you to your father, didn’t I? That’s where we’re going now.” He held his hand out to her again.

  “I’m going to go now, Rose.” He still looked at Margaret. This close, the boom of his other voice brushed against her face and seemed to wrap around Margaret, engulfing her. The sounds of his words drove out the images in her head. She raised a tentative hand. He took her hand in his and pulled her to her feet as he stood. “I’m taking Margaret to her father,” he continued. “If you don’t mind, do try to get Janett to the fort on time. I did give my word I would bring them to their father. You remember their father, don’t you, Rose?”

  Mr. Thomas paused, and Margaret came back to herself. She still held his hand, but they were alone in the darkness now. The river flowed past them, splitting and falling and rejoining and continuing on its way. She looked at the single tree on the rock in the middle of the river.

  As Mr. Thomas continued to speak, she kept hoping that Miss Rose and Chal and Major Haley would rush out to save her. But no one came.

  “Good night, Rose,” Mr. Thomas finished. He tugged on Margaret’s hand, then stood beside her as she looked across the river. “Yes, she’s still out there,” he said in his normal voice. “Don’t worry, Margaret. You’ll see Miss Rose Bainbridge again. And your sister. And maybe even Major Haley.” He paused. “Maybe. For now, though, you need to come with me.”

  With that, Mr. Thomas had pulled her along, away from the river, into the darkness of the forest. She held Mr. Thomas’ hand with both of hers. She kept her eyes open. Not to see. But because if she closed them, she would see … and she would hear …

  * * *

  The walking helped.
She hung on the end of Mr. Thomas’ arm like a weight, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other as if that was all that mattered. If she focused on her walking, she was not alone with a friend she no longer recognized, or surrounded by stick-like monsters that grabbed from the darkness and ripped a man to shreds, or abandoned by her protectors, or lost without her sister or her father. She was just walking. Step by step. Walking. To her father. Walking. To Da.

  Mr. Thomas did not talk. That helped too. If he did not talk. If she did not look at him. She could be holding Da’s hand. Or Major Haley’s. And everything … could be … as it should be.

  She screamed. Not words. Just a feral cry of pain and despair and a need for escape.

  The hand holding hers tightened as she tried to let go. She tugged and pulled back, but the man who held her did not slow.

  Her scream choked out of existence by her own fear, she stumbled forward again, trying not to be dragged.

  Trying to regain control of her legs and feet. And trying to lose herself again in the rhythm of walking.

  * * *

  Margaret followed Mr. Thomas out of the trees into a clearing that had been cut from the undergrowth. The moon had already sunk to the west, but the stars were bright, showing her a double ring of black lean-tos arranged around a black tent in the center of the clearing. She looked, she saw, but she made no attempt to comprehend.

  A hiss of steam and red sparks showed the path of small grunzers around the perimeter of the camp. One of the grunzers stomped toward her and Mr. Thomas and the other creatures that slipped out of the forest. She had never seen a grunzer so small before, but she did not look. If she focused, she would see, and she did not want to see. Anything.

  Mr. Thomas did not slow down, leading her, pulling her, between the lean-tos. The grunzer came close, a hemispherical blob, flat side to the front, with articulated legs and disproportionately long arms that carried an axe longer than Mr. Haley was tall. Steam hissed out of the grunzer, and its boiler glowed with heat, but Margaret saw no firebox, and no smokestack. She did not look closer. She only saw what she saw because it happened in front of her. The grunzer paused at a gesture from Mr. Thomas, then turned and stomped away.

  The light around her changed as they moved into the camp. Night remained, but the darkness faded, and the stars shown less bright, as if viewed through an oily veil.

  The lean-tos became half tents, made with black canvas stretched over rough poles, open toward the center of the camp. Men stood and sat in short ranks under the lean-tos, also facing the center. Or maybe they were not all men. Or not-men.

  Margaret did not see, because she refused to see, the bones of Private Tishman thrown on a haystack of similar remains, with skeletal hands and feet sticking out in odd directions and skulls gleaming black. She kept her eyes unfocused, blurring everything into the grayness that built up around her.

  The grayness became … not brighter. More substantial, driving color away. The thick nonlight emanated from wood fires that burned, colorless, silver flames turning the wood black, five of them in a ring around the center tent. Over one of the fires a rabbit was being roasted, turned on the spit by a man who stood with one foot in the flames. Margaret refused to smell the cooking meat that penetrated the odor of death and bile that hovered around her, refused to speculate on which burning flesh she smelled.

  Mr. Thomas led her to the center tent and pushed through the flaps, pulling her with him. Within the tent a more normal fire burned in a woodstove whose chimney poked up through the roof of the tent. The stove’s grate glowed orange, illuminating a small table with a chair, two military cots and three naked female figures. One of the figures was a little girl with long blonde hair as disheveled as Margaret’s. The girl’s slack face and dead eyes penetrated Margaret’s lack of focus. Then she saw the women clearly, their faces just as dead, and their bodies cut and mutilated, clotted blood showing black on their faces and torsos and between their legs.

  Margaret screamed and tried to bury her face against Mr. Thomas.

  “Take her clothes,” Mr. Thomas said, and pushed Margaret toward the figures.

  “No!” she screamed. “Mr. Thomas!”

  Three sets of cold hands grabbed her. Margaret struggled. She screamed for Mr. Thomas to help her, but he only stood there, watching as the cold fingers unfastened her belt and undid the buttons of her blouse and pulled off her shoes.

  “Don’t struggle so much, Margaret,” Mr. Thomas said. “You’ll rip your clothes.”

  The two women held her while the girl pulled the trousers off her, leaving her in her underpants. The girl dropped the trousers to the ground beside the shoes, then took hold of Margaret’s legs. Margaret kicked at the girl, the heel of her left foot smashing into the girl’s cheek hard. Something cracked, and the cheek seemed to cave in, but the girl did not cry out. The girl grabbed Margaret’s leg about the ankle and secured it under her arm.

  “That wasn’t very nice, Miss Laxton.”

  Margaret whimpered from the suddenly cool air and fear and realized she had wet herself as the women, one after the other, held her and removed her arms from her blouse. The blouse joined the pile on the floor.

  The women and the girl still held her, parallel to the ground, naked except her underpants, trembling and crying. She tried again to get free, to cover herself, but the hands held her. She could not move.

  Mr. Thomas stepped closer now, and leaned over her. His eyes traveled up her legs and her body and rested finally on her face. He smiled at her, a lopsided smile that seemed at once amused and possessive. He raised his left hand and she prepared to scream again if he touched her, but he placed the hand on the shoulder of the girl. “Put on her clothes,” he said.

  The girl released Margaret’s legs, and they fell, banging her heels painfully into the hard-packed earth. Margaret tried to pull her legs under her, to stand, but the other women did not release their grips. The women stood there, holding Margaret as she and Mr. Thomas watched the girl put on Margaret’s clothes. Blouse first, then the trousers, and finally sitting on the ground to pull on the shoes. When she finished, she stopped moving. She remained seated on the floor, staring at nothing, one leg pulled up, looking as if she had been frozen in that position.

  “Lie on the cot,” Mr. Ducoed said.

  The girl pushed herself to hands and knees and crawled across the ground to the first cot. She crawled into the cot and lay face down, one foot still hanging over the side.

  Mr. Ducoed shrugged. “Close enough.” He looked at Margaret again and smiled. Margaret turned away. She heard him walk to the door of the tent, pull back the flaps. “Bring it in,” he said.

  The smell of roasted rabbit and something else that Margaret refused to identify, keeping her eyes closed, filled the tent.

  Another word from Mr. Thomas and the hands holding her pulled her forward and the smell of roast rabbit became stronger. She felt warmth on her cheek. She opened her eyes. She was held beside the table, which now had a tray with the rabbit and a single plate. Her legs were still bent under her. Mr. Thomas sat in the chair across from her. He pulled a knife from his belt and carved off a bit flesh and popped it into his mouth. He smiled as he chewed.

  “Eat up, Margaret,” he said. “You must keep up your strength for the trip.”

  Her lower lip trembled. She thought about kicking his legs, but she did not have her shoes on anymore.

  He cut off strips of meat and placed them on the plate. He pushed the plate to her side of the table. “Help her eat,” he said.

  The hands shifted, then were pushing her forward, and her head down, until her face was just above the plate, steam from the still-hot meat wisping against her face. Her mouth watered, but she made no move to eat. After a minute, her stomach growled, prompting Mr. Thomas to laugh. She could not see him, but it sounded as if he had food in his mouth.

  “You should eat,” he said. “It’s just a coney. Sorry about the lack of chips. Still, it’s quite good.
”

  Margaret wished she had tried to kick him, even if it had hurt her. Finally she opened her lips and reached for the meat with her teeth and tongue. The meat was still warm. She chewed, and swallowed, then picked up the next piece the same way.

  “Hardly lady-like,” Mr. Thomas said as he pushed more meat in front of her. “Eating right off the plate like that. Janett would be appalled, I have no doubt.”

  Margaret tried to bite his hand, but the women holding her prevented her, and he only laughed in response.

  When she had eaten more than she thought she could, hating herself for eating it no matter how hungry she was, Ducoed told the women, “Gag her, then take her to the other tent. I’m sure she’s tired.”

  The women lifted her upright again, and one of them reached around to push a wad of dirty cloth into her mouth. She tried to keep her mouth clenched, ground her teeth, but the cold fingers of the woman did not relent. They pushed harder and harder until the fear of losing teeth made Margaret open her mouth. The cloth tasted foul, as did the fingers.

  She bit down, as hard as she could. She felt her teeth penetrate flesh, felt tooth grind against bone, tasted something even more foul than the cloth.

  The woman did not cry out. She did not even wiggle her fingers. She only continued to tug on her hand, time after time, trying to get it out of Margaret’s mouth.

  Mr. Thomas laughed. “I didn’t realize how hungry you were, Miss Laxton.”