by Daryl Banner
“She’s out there,” someone answers softly.
I turn. The woman that Megan has grown into stands there near the cage. She seems to regard me cautiously, her Warlock-blue eye appearing fierce as she studies my temperament, I presume … sizing me up. But if she’s sizing me up right, she ought to see there’s no fight left. I’ve hardly been in this city a week and it’s defeated me.
“Somewhere,” Megan finishes, taking a step toward the cage. “Your mom, Julianne … that’s the name she gave herself … That horrible woman was once our sworn enemy, the Deathless King herself … and yet she’s taken off bravely, daring to hunt the Empress Shee when everyone else quivered in fear. They called her a hero for chasing after Shee. Isn’t that hilarious? They honor her like a hero, running off to save them. They don’t even know they’re honoring their worst nightmare.”
I stare off, feeling the wind tickle and dance through my hair, wisps of white flicking in front of my eyes. If I were to close them, I’m certain I’d be transported to that moment long ago, that moment when Helena was in the cage to my left, and a screaming Megan was in the cage to my right. The memory is almost kind.
“I think your mom wanted to redeem herself.” Megan smiles; it looks more like a smirk. “Or at least that’s what I would like to think, despite how much I still hate her. Maybe she, like you, didn’t fit in here. Maybe she couldn’t stand to be here with the memories of the horrors she’s done, even if no one knew it was her … even if her secret was kept. Maybe it’s too heavy a lie for even her to carry.”
I move my gaze back to the strawberries. Carelessly, I pluck one of them. The rich, juicy red thing does not rot between my fingers. What a brave little thing, this piece of fruit. I bite it, feeling the helpless thing pop between my teeth. I chew and I chew. I taste nothing but I chew anyway, chewing, chewing, chewing, then I swallow it, letting it drop into my stomach where it’s likely to stay there for all the rest of eternity. I flick the puny stem across the cage, feeling like I’d won some decisive battle.
“That was unnecessary,” remarks Megan.
“Very,” I agree, wiping my hand off on the blue dress I’d decided to wear to my welcoming party that’d been cut short. Didn’t even get to try Marigold’s cake.
“You realize this area has no covering for your kind,” Megan points out gently. “It’s not safe, should the sirens sound.”
“So let the rain take me,” I declare, bitter. “We’re all going to crumble eventually anyway. Helena did. Collin’s friend did. Who knows who else did.” I sigh, running my hand along the cage, drawing myself to the door. “Why have we been handed this Second Life if the planet only means to take it right back? I feel like I’ve hardly been here long, already my clock’s ticking.”
“I don’t have the answers.”
“No, you don’t,” I agree, narrowing my eyes. “Funny, really. I feel more alive now than I ever did. I’m just as finite as you now, Megan. My next death is as imminent as your first one.”
Megan nods solemnly. “True. From dust we came, to dust we go. I came here to say I’m sorry.”
Her apology touches me, albeit coolly. “Alright.”
“I should not have … taken my anger out on you. Really, it wasn’t fair.” Megan’s jaw tightens, as though this admittance of wrongdoing were the most difficult task in the world, even more difficult than taking out her own eye and replacing it with a rock. “You deserved more of my respect than that. If I recall, I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for your generosity and … heroism.”
“Heroism,” I repeat, scoffing at the word.
“It was right here,” she says, strolling over to the cage that was, long ago, the one next to mine. “Remember?”
“You were crying so horribly, I threw a shoe at you.”
Megan chuckles dryly, staring at the cage and, I’m quite sure, recalling the whole horrible experience vividly. “These Crypters had taken my brother from me and, well, ate him. I was certain I was to meet the same fate.”
Her eyes move to me, and she smiles. In that smile, for this brief moment, I see the young Megan, the girl Megan, the little Megan who’d rush up to me and squeeze me so hard I thought all my Undead bones would break.
“You changed my fate,” says Megan.
“Alright, well, let’s spare getting all dramatic about it.” I shrug, looking away. “I mean, really, I was just lucky most of the time. And you—”
A pair of arms wrap around me. Megan’s arms. She’s come up to me and she’s embracing me, squeezing me. I close my eyes and let her. Then at last, I allow my own arms to enclose her, returning the Human warmth she’s lending me. I listen to her heartbeat, feeling it drum between us for as long as this hug may last.
She pulls away. “It’s called a Final Sight.”
“What?”
“Ever since the first Undead experienced it, we named it the Final Sight. Seems to happen just before they turn to dust … Their eyesight suddenly takes in all the sunlight and the darkness and the—whatever else it is that your Undead eyes seem to block out or disregard entirely. The Final Sight, a glimpse of truth or … or whatever you might see it as.”
“The moment of clarity,” I say, feeling the humor on my tongue and glancing back fondly at the cage. “It’s what Helena called the final moment of a First Life. Just before you die as a Human, you experience a ‘moment of clarity’ … when everything makes sense in an instant.”
“A moment of clarity,” she echoes, tasting the words, smiling and nodding. “It sounds a bit peaceful. I’d really like for my last moment to be … peaceful. I wonder what I’d realize in my … moment of clarity.”
“It’s a far better term,” I insist. “I mean, it’s so much less doomy than ‘Final Sight’ … Goodness, can we think of any words more ominous?”
“Is that a challenge?” Megan smirks, the humor finding her. “I propose: Last Look On Earth Ever.”
“A Glimpse Before The Axe Falls,” I throw back.
“The Final-Final Death!”
“Gloom Vision!”
“Doom Vision!”
“Vision Of Finalness And Death!”
“The Deathly Sunshine Of Doom!”
Back and forth we issue worse and worse names for the so-called Final Sight until we lose all traces of our ever-pesky maturity and fall into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. She’s cackling like a moron and I’m rolling on the ground. Our howls and cackles ricochet off the sides of these buildings of horror, snake through the cages that once held scared-to-death prisoners, and defy the breathy howl of nature’s wind … and we don’t care. The world spins and spins and spins, and here we are wasting all our precious time on this planet laughing and cracking jokes and being silly, stupid girls again. How dare we? I could turn to dust right now and the last thing I’d be doing is laughing. I could turn to dust right now with a smile on my face and laughter in my eyes.
Let them see it. Let Mother Nature herself throw her worst storm at me in this beautiful, fleeting moment of joy. Let everyone pay witness to Megan and Winter, the greatest, stupidest, most hilarious fools the Living or Dead worlds have ever known.
C H A P T E R – S I X
W A R R I O R W I N T E R
My interview at the Job & Business Blah, Blah, Long-Name Headquarters is a brief one. I suspect those in charge had already made up their minds long before I stepped Undead-foot into the room, but I went in jobless and came out a guardsman.
When Headless Ann learns my assignment, she gives an uncharacteristic squeal of such exhilaration her head almost falls off. “I can’t believe you’re one of us!”
“Just like you.” I smile lamely. “Except I don’t have the unique capability of removing my head.”
“Neither do I anymore, technically.” She gives her neck two knocks; I hear the tinny protest of metal against knuckle. “Titanium.”
“Titanium,” I agree.
The most of my evenings and nights will now consist of being perched
somewhere upon the walls of the Necropolis overlooking the terrain. “New Trenton,” Ann corrects me gently, and I roll my eyes. Our perches are all covered and, therefore, protected from sudden onslaughts of rain. Every week or so, I will trade positions with a guardsman who polices the streets.
For as much action as that seems to promise, I find on my first day sitting upon the wall that I’m so bored I literally consider pulling out my hair one strand at a time as a means to count the passing minutes. “Maybe I can fashion a paintbrush by sunrise,” I jape at myself, curled up in my watcher’s chair and picking at my nails.
I haven’t seen John since the party. Through Ann, I did learn the location of the bar at which he’s been assigned. I’m not sure if anyone’s pointed out the irony in his being assigned the position of bartender, as the two of us happened to meet in a Trenton tavern women’s bathroom for the first time, but I consider whether to visit him after my shift is over.
“Do you know why the Dead watch the walls at night?” asks my fellow wall-watcher, a man swallowed in the black, bulky armor of our position.
“Their talent of seeing well in the dark?” I reckon, answering through the muffled helmet we’re made to wear. The armor is annoying and makes my arms move clumsily. We’re Undead and basically unbreakable; why do we have to wear all this extraneous crap?
“No.” He scoots a bit closer, shuffling along the wall from one covered part to another. “The Dead have more to lose than the Living.”
I squint, shifting a bit in my armor to face him. “What do you mean?”
“Did you know there’s only twenty-one of them left?”
Them. It only now occurs to me that my little coworker buddy is Living. And he thinks I’m Living too.
“No, I didn’t,” I answer quietly.
“Twenty-one! And now, after … what’s her name … the tall bony cold one that always wore black …”
“Helena.” My voice is dark and iron-hard.
“Yes! That one,” he exclaims. “My friend used to work for her in the Mayor’s department. Said she was a rude, snobby woman who never thanked no one for nothing.” He shrugs, all his armor clinking in protest. “I never met her, so I can’t say. Anyway, she was twenty-two. Now there’s twenty-one. They’re dying off one by one, and us Living need to keep our numbers strong, know what I mean? Other than that illness outbreak scare a few years back, we’ve kept strong, don’t you think?”
“Strong,” I agree, looking off over the wall, feeling my fingers tighten and my jaw setting. All I see is an endless green cloud of treetops under a grey sky. I hadn’t realized our numbers were so few. Only twenty-one of us remain? Did that twenty-one include my mother, lost in the world? Or has my mother also crumbled to dust by now?
“At this rate, I doubt the Dead will be around for much longer. A month, maybe less.” He sighs. “Hell, just a week, who knows? Too bad, really … They weren’t all as awful as Helen, whatever her name was. Hey, did you hear about the missing blood? Trying to investigate why there’s blood missing from the supply at the hospital. If you ask me, I think the Undead Doctor there’s drinking it. Wouldn’t put it past an Undead to drink blood, know what I mean? I heard the Crypters used to, long ago. The Deathless, they were called, but I wasn’t alive then.” He chuckles, itches his arm, then adds: “Not that it matters; the Dead can’t taste anything anyway, I heard.”
He doesn’t know. With the exception of only a select few, the Humans do not know what happens when an Undead tastes of Living flesh or blood. They don’t realize it makes us taste and feel and see as Humans taste, feel, and see … even if just for a fleeting moment.
“Alright, I’m off,” he announces. “Sun’s almost down and it looks like my replacement’s here.” He waves at an approaching person jogging heavily toward the stairs that lead up to the top of the wall. “Is yours on the way?”
“Probably,” I lie, not caring to mention I’m actually here for the nightshift and, unlike him, it’s just begun.
“You’ll get your due rest. Oh, I’m Leo, and you’re …?”
Leo. Someone recently mentioned a Leo, but the source doesn’t immediately come to mind. “I’m … Win—Win—Winona.” I smile, then realize he can’t see it through the stupid helmet. “My name’s Winona.”
“I’ll call you Winnie. My name’s too short to make into a nickname, so don’t even try it,” he jokes.
Leo. It comes to me at once: Robin’s husband. He and Robin have two little children, Jay and Lil’ Crow—a family of birds. That explains his curiosity about the missing blood in the hospital; Robin likely told him all about it.
“I’m out!” He hops off, trading places with his bulkier counterpart, and disappears down the stairs. I imagine him returning to his wife after her long day at the hospital and telling her about his new friend Winona. It’s dumb, really. Don’t all the Humans know each other well enough to recognize when they’ve a newcomer among them? Or, perhaps, has the Living population truly grown so big that they can no longer keep track …?
The new guardsman greets me with a grunt. I do the same, and then the two of us fall into a silent gloom for the remainder of the long, boring night.
When my own replacement finds me, I’m off the wall and hardly make it halfway down the street before I’m tearing off my stupid, annoying armor one stupid, annoying piece at a time. Pitching them into an armchair the second I step foot in my apartment—not bothering in the least to even hang them up—I trade leg-plates for jeans, armor for t-shirt, and don a leather cuff on my wrist. “Leather” they said it is, though I’d be skeptical to hear what animal, exactly, it came from, as the supply of animal is quite short and I imagine we’re more in the business of preserving our world and wildlife in all forms than to kill for the purposes of fashioning accessories and lush fur coats.
A Dead lady as thin as a pole who lives down the hall asks where I’m heading out to. At the stair, I say, “The bar.” She giggles, shouts, “You oughta meet the new bartender! Super cutie.”
I make sure to scathe her with my icecaps as I leave.
The walk is confusing and twisty, but short. At the edge of the Necropolis near the east wall where a church used to squat—a church I specifically remember escaping through when Megan and a bunch of Humans followed me out of the Necropolis—there rests now a bar where Humans and Undead alike can hang out and be merry. That is, of the twenty-one Undead who still exist or whatever. I wonder if the bar actually is the church and was simply renovated.
Inside, I’m surprised to find the place occupied by only one other person, who is shrouded in a cloak and stooped over a glass of cloudy, brownish something. When I take a seat at the bar, several away from the silent man, John and who I take to be his trainer, short and bearded, emerge from the back.
John’s eyes light up right away. “Winter!”
“Hey, John.” I try on a smile, prop my elbows on the counter and shrug. “Enjoying your … assignment?”
“It’s … interesting,” John decides, choosing his words. When the short and bearded man returns to the back, John leans over the counter and confesses, “Actually, it’s pretty boring. Haven’t had but three customers all day.”
“You should try sitting on a wall for nine hours.”
“What job makes you sit on a wall for nine hours?”
“Guardsman. I’m a police officer, basically.”
John’s face scrunches up. “Police officer?”
“Oh, sorry. I’m using a term from the … Old World.” John listens to my every word. I’m not sure what I was hoping for in a conversation with John, but it certainly wasn’t discussing the nine-hour tedium from which I’d just freed myself. “Police officers were, um, from my First Life, which was … which was a very, very long time ago. I’m a guard. I guard the gates and … make sure the city’s safe, I guess. Maybe the job-assigning fellow figured, what with my history of dismantling Deathless movements and beheading prior Mayors, I must be guardsman material. Anyway, I made
a friend on the wall. He …” I meet John’s eyes; he looks almost frightened. “Too much?”
“No, no. Sorry.” He chuckles, waves me off. “No, I’m just … realizing that perhaps I ought to learn more about you.” He smiles tentatively. What a gentleman. “Your First Life was a … was a long time ago?”
“Yes. An indeterminately long time ago.”
“I see.” I watch as John’s mind processes a few things, stewing. Then he asks, “So how long ago was mine?”
Oh. That’s the direction he’s going. “Your First Life?”
“Yes. Do you … Do you know? I mean, it’s a fair question, isn’t it? You’re my Reaper, after all.” He smiles, folding his arms on the counter and lifting his brow.
No one’s bothered to help me with this. No one at all. Helena’s gone now. Mayor Megan has her mayor duties. Marigold is a mess of oblivious merriment and I have so few other friends that still exist. John and I must suffer awkwardly making this transition from former lovers to complete strangers all by ourselves, except I’m the only one between us who’s aware of it. It’s nearly impossible.
But maybe it’s also an opportunity. “I … do know a bit about your … um …” I smirk, gathering my words.
“You do know me!” he says suddenly, eyes flashing. “I knew it! I had a gut feeling. Which is funny to say, as I don’t have any actual guts.” He laughs at his joke. I just stare at him blankly and grimace. “So tell me, then. Please. How long ago was my First Life?”
“It was … well, it was twelve years ago.”
“Twelve? Only twelve?”
“Your death,” I clarify. “You … You died twelve years ago, John.”
“Interesting.” He narrows his eyes, leaning over the counter and studying me like a book. I keep my face blank as a stone that just sank in a river, taking with it all my joy as it slowly, lazily sinks. “Interesting,” he repeats, his favorite word of the night.