by Scott Hale
Poe stood on the tavern’s porch, puffing out a cloud of smoke from his pipe. His face glistened in the torchlight as his thick fingers tucked in the places where his fat had pushed out his shirt. One of his girls screamed upstairs, making him jump. After all these years, it still got to him. The gesture wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing, even if in the end that’s exactly what it amounted to.
Atticus crept in the dark toward the tavern. “James here?”
“Holy Child in hell!” Poe coughed and beat his chest. “Who’s that? Atticus?” He leaned forward, squinted, his small, rodent eyes disappearing in the folds of his face. “Come out here. Where you been?”
Atticus was careful not to show too much of himself. He hadn’t had a good look at his body since he’d climbed back in it. The clothes he’d thrown on when he left the house were in a terrible condition, too. But at this point, what did it matter?
“What’s happening?” Poe chewed on the pipe stem. “Why you acting all timid?”
Atticus took that as a taunt, so he came out of the shadows and stopped at the front steps. The pipe dropped out of Poe’s mouth and fell between the crooked planks. He put his hands out, like he wanted to help.
“James?” Atticus insisted.
Over Poe’s shoulder, through the tavern’s open doorway, two drunk women danced near the bar. They were kissing each other’s foreheads, and singing a tuneless song.
“He – he’s inside, same place as before. He’s fixing to leave in the morning.” Poe cringed. “Elijah went ahead without him. Didn’t want to wait around until James was right enough to ride again.” He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. “Who did this to you? Do you know even what…? Come here, come here.”
Atticus let Poe lead him inside, to the barkeep’s retreat beneath the stairs. He could count on one hand the number of occasions he’d gone in the room. The first time, he’d been twelve, when he had no place to go, because no one wanted him. The second and third had been because of a bloody blur of bad jobs. The fourth time he found his way in was by way of Will’s birth and its celebration. And the fifth had come shortly thereafter, when Atticus had to beat his retirement out of the fat man’s grip.
“You hungry? Thirsty?” Poe ducked under the stairs and pushed open his door. “I could have something fixed up for you.”
Atticus shook his head. A fog of incense rolled lazily out of the room, too long left inside to know what to do with itself. It smelled hot, felt hot; the aroma it carried was of sweet perfume and chopped wood. His senses were intact, but hunger and thirst were conveniently absent. He shook his head again and wandered in, over to the mirror Poe now stood beside.
Anyone with a pair of eyes and half a brain could see Atticus had died. His skin was pale, splotchy—shaded darkly where bone bulged against it. The hair on his head went wildly in different directions, held in place by whatever foul stuff greased it. His body as a whole, not to mention the actual hole in his chest, appeared both stiff and stretched, as though Death hadn’t been able to decide what to do with him. In that revealing moment, he felt embarrassed, ashamed, not fit to be amongst the living or in the flesh that had once served him so well.
While he was dazed, Poe fingered the collar of Atticus’ shirt and pulled it down. “Who did this to you?”
The wound was a hard gem of gore buried in his chest. When did Poe discover kindness? Atticus searched the room, its Old World artifacts—the microwave, the air conditioner, and sculptures made of out of circuitry. Perhaps he’d found it with these dead things that outlived those like him.
“You don’t know?” Atticus said at last.
“Hell, you made it very clear to us simple folk of Gallows you want your privacy. When’s the last time you had visitors?”
Atticus gritted his teeth.
“My point exactly.”
“The soldiers from Penance came.” He paused, eviscerated the tale until it sounded generic. “We were attacked. They took Clementine and Will to Bedlam. I’m going to get them back.”
Poe’s lip quivered. He took a seat at his desk and ran his fingers over a keyboard. The sensation was one he often used to calm his nerves. “But why would they do that?”
More corpses to deliver, Atticus remembered. More corpses to bury, to spread the growth. He glanced at Poe, snarling as he thought: they put those veins inside them. If he took too long, would their bodies be ravaged beyond resurrection?
Atticus hurried out of the room, up the stairs, and burst through James’ door. The twenty-two-year-old prostitute was in bed, blanket up to his chin, a small candle burning on the table beside him. Even now, three years later, he couldn’t fall asleep without some light to keep him safe.
“Get up,” Atticus said.
Immediately, James woke and screamed. In sweaty convulsions, he kicked his way across the bed until he hit the wall. He reached under his pillow and pulled out a knife.
“It’s me,” Atticus continued.
“Atticus?” James kept the knife pointed at him, not entirely convinced. He called him forward with his free hand. “What’s wrong with your face?”
“Clementine and Will are dead. Those soldiers you fucked killed them and took them. I need their bodies back. And I need you to help me draw them out.”
“Clementine and Will are—”
Atticus found James’ clothes in a pile on floor and threw them at the boy. “I need your help, not your sympathy.”
James caught the clothes and immediately started getting dressed. “Okay,” he said, his tears soaking his shirt as he pulled it over his head. “Okay, okay. Okay, okay, okay,” he repeated, the words becoming more and more incoherent, until he was shaking too hard to button his pants. “God, oh god, Atticus, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“There’s an Eldrus outpost there.” Atticus kept his composure, because if he didn’t, he’d lose it for good.
“There is, that’s where they’re going. That’s what they said. Will you tell me what happened?” He stared at Atticus, who stared back, grimly. “If they know you’re coming, then they’ll know why. They’ll lie to you. I can figure out what they’ve done with… with… I can call in favors. Hex, maybe. When do you want to leave?”
Two hours later, Atticus and James were back at the farmhouse, saddling the horses and stocking weapons and supplies. Dawn glowed at the corners of the sky, finally letting him know just how long he’d been awake. Hunger and thirst had yet to find him. Fatigue, if it was there, had long since been suppressed by the focus he needed to see this all through.
Something had gone wrong with the ritual, Gary and Mr. Haemo had warned. If these were the symptoms of their mistake, he was glad for them.
He didn’t need James, he thought, as he watched the boy mount the horse. Not to track down Blythe and Bon. His reasons for dragging him across the countryside were selfish, ones he wouldn’t admit come hell or high water. No, bringing James was an apology, an unspoken acceptance and forgiveness. Atticus needed someone at his side for this, someone who knew Clementine and Will and would keep him going when late-night doubt set in. Above all else, and god damn if it didn’t hurt to admit it, he needed someone to love.
“What’s this?”
Atticus snapped out of it. He looked at the graveyard. Gary was shambling between the plots, his body covered completely in ratty clothes and scarves—the ghoul’s idea of a disguise.
“Where y’all going?” he asked in a mocking drawl.
James stopped what he was doing and stared down the creature. His face twitched out a smile. Bedlam was home for him, but his true homecoming was now, as the two dead things welcomed him back into their stunted lives. He went to Gary, threw his arms around him, and let his tears soften up the ghoul’s dried flesh.
“Does he know?” Gary asked, pulling away from James.
“Knows enough,” Atticus said. “You better get back to the chapel. Sun will be up soon.”
“I’m coming with.” The ghoul hurried back to
the graveyard and pulled a cowboy hat out from behind a grave. “I’ll sleep until we get to where we’re going.” He lowered it on his head and kicked up some dirt. “No one will know.”
There was a third horse in the barn, a small brown Quarter he’d found in the wilds a year back. The thought of leaving it behind hadn’t sat well with him, anyway.
“If someone finds out what you are…” Atticus said.
“I’m on borrowed time, buddy.” Gary passed between Atticus and James to reach his mount in the stalls. “If you leave, I’m done for. Simple as that. I need you. And I want to help you. No one and nothing has ever been as good to me as you and yours were to our kind.”
“Fair enough,” Atticus rumbled, putting his foot in the stirrups and mounting the horse. “Don’t suppose Mr. Haemo would care to join our motley crew?”
“You can’t be serious,” James said, doe-eyed. “That thing’s still here?”
“No, he’s a bit of a homebody,” Gary said, leading his horse out of the barn.
“We ought to pay him a visit,” Atticus said, watching horror spread across James’ face, “and see if he can’t track Clementine’s and Will’s… b-bodies. Find out where they’re at exactly in Bedlam.”
Gary shook his head and got on the horse bareback. “Tried. Can’t track something if there’s no blood left in it.”
“They bled them dry?”
Gary closed his eyes, shook his head, and said, “Yeah.”
Atticus closed his hands around the reins and held them tightly. The hate and hurt he felt was unbearable. There was no doubt in his mind he would’ve long since killed himself if he didn’t already know what awaited him in the Membrane. Not the Abyss or the Membrane, but Clementine, and her bitter disappointment.
“Let’s go,” he said, kicking the horse into a gallop. He looked back, at the farmhouse, at the land, and hoped never to see them again, not until he saw them again.
CHAPTER IX
The massive snake and its slithering brood had come out of nowhere. In one scaled second, it sprung from the woods and struck Atticus’ horse in the neck. The beast whined as the serpent tore a chunk out of its throat. As it fell sideways, legs kicking wildly at its attacker, Atticus jumped from the saddle and hit the road hard.
“Get away from him,” James screamed, his own horse on its hind legs, terrified. He drew his beat-up sword and held it limply.
Atticus reached into his pack and pulled out his machete. He scurried backward, heels leaving grooves in the dirt. The snake’s brood shimmered like silk as they slid in unison towards him. He hacked at the air to hold them at bay, but they kept coming all the same.
“No, James,” he heard Gary shout. “Stay the hell back.”
The Hissing Monarch hurried ahead of her children and threw the bulk of her weight over the horse. The beast cried out, slammed its hooves into her side. Little by little, the venom in its neck sapped its strength.
The Hissing Monarch took the hits excitedly, its forked tongue tasting the beast’s fear-drenched coat. Slowly, carefully, patiently, it wrapped itself around the animal. When all that could be seen of the horse was its head, it squeezed.
The horse’s scream was cut short as the broken bones inside it stabbed every which way into its organs. Its wide and wet eyes blew out of its skull and into the Hissing Monarch’s waiting mouth. She gulped them down too quickly to taste them, and turned her sights on Atticus.
“Get back! Get back, god damn you,” Atticus hollered.
His heart pounded in his chest. He hacked head after head off the smaller snakes. But the brood continued unabated, breaking like a wave around him and then reforming behind, so that he was surrounded. He looked at them, the Monarch’s gawping children, and hoped that his scraps would give them the shits.
“Xu’chil utuk ah g’hu’uhl,” Gary belted, as he dropped from his horse and hurried, bow drawn, arrow readied, to his friend. Though it was no spell, the words drew the Monarch’s ire.
Atticus threw caution to the wind and jumped to his feet. With the Hissing Monarch distracted, he turned and ran through the field of bared teeth. The brood sprung through the air, clamped down on his ankles, calves, and thighs. He felt their fangs in his flesh, their venom in his blood, surging throughout his body.
He only got a few feet before his legs were too heavy to lift. He stopped, turned around, stumbled as he lost circulation in his legs completely. Back where he’d started, the Hissing Monarch thrashed, one of Gary’s arrows jutting out of her head.
Atticus glanced at James, who sat upon his horse, just as stunned as his animal. He’d made a mistake bringing the living to do the work of the damned.
“Atticus,” Gary screamed.
He didn’t have any time to react. The Hissing Monarch swung herself into him, flattening him against the ground. Fang after fang after fang ripped out his flesh. The brood that had surrounded him retreated, to give their mother space, and to give Gary chase.
“Bring me back,” Atticus wheezed, as the massive snake coiled around him.
He was speaking to Gary, who’d fled. But if the Monarch was willing, that’d work, too. One day into his mission, three hours from Bedlam, and this was how it was to end.
“Bring me back,” he cried. The Monarch’s crucifix-shaped pupils widened. Her weight now became the weight of his failure.
The Hissing Monarch opened her mouth, revealing two fangs as long Atticus’ forearms. Her gigantic head moved closer, blocking out his field of vision. He heard more words, more commotion. But what could they do? The brood had already killed him. The Monarch was just coming to get the credit.
The snake flicked her black tongue, reared back. Pop. Snap. A geyser of blood blew out of her throat, onto his face. The Hissing Monarch unraveled from him.
He wiped the blood from his eyes, the Monarch’s own flashing all the shades of hate. She twisted around. Having given up glory, Atticus saw what had wounded her.
Three female Night Terrors stood behind the Monarch. An unmasked one was closest to the snake, her jet black spear goring the Monarch’s side. The other two, the Bison and the Horse, were further down the creature, their swords pinning parts of her body to the road.
“Atticus, get up,” James shouted, turning his horse and galloping towards him.
The Unmasked shoved the spear in deeper, grinding it through muscle. The Monarch whipped around. Her tail tore from the swords, and split down the middle.
James came around behind Atticus. He reached for his hand. His legs were swelling in his pants, pushing against the fabric, ready to explode.
The Hissing Monarch lunged forward, venom like spit spewing from her mouth. The Unmasked ripped the spear out, bore down on the beast again. The Monarch went sideways, jerked back, and clamped her mouth over the Unmasked’s head.
“Drag me, god damn it,” Atticus said through his teeth.
James, halfway out of his saddle, held his hand tight and towed him off the road. Gary was circling the perimeter, the words he kept repeating distracting the snapping horde.
The Horse and the Bison rushed to their companion. The Monarch choked down the Unmasked, her last line of defense against their steel. The Night Terrors raised their swords over the snake. The Unmasked’s shoulder, arms, and hips disappeared down the Monarch’s gullet.
“She’s dead,” Atticus heard the Horse say. If she wasn’t, to kill the Monarch would be to kill their companion; he’d never known the Night Terrors to show sympathy.
But that’s just what they did. One after the other, they stabbed and chopped through the Monarch, through their friend, until the snake’s head was separated from her body, and the Unmasked’s body from her head.
“We weren’t here,” the Horse said, her grotesque face, half-flesh, half-skull, beaming down on Atticus.
“Watch out,” Gary shouted, the brood having changed their course back toward the Monarch.
The Bison grabbed the snake’s still sputtering head, lifted it up, and sh
ook it until the Unmasked’s decapitated corpse slid free. The Horse rooted through the Hissing Matron’s gory remains and pulled out her companion’s head. Holding it by its long hair, the Horse knelt down and scooped the Unmasked up into her arms.
“You should be dead by now,” the Bison said to Atticus. The Night Terror turned away and walked with the Horse into the woods, leaving a thick trail of blood in their wake.
Fixing his disguise, Gary said, “Up, up.” He ran over to Atticus, slung his friend’s arm around his shoulder, and lifted him.
Beside them, the brood slithered over Atticus’ dead horse. They shoved themselves inside the Matron’s wound. Her body swelled and bulged, while her children consumed her from the inside out.
“Something went wrong with the ritual,” Atticus whispered into Gary’s ear. The ghoul and James worked together to lift him onto James’ horse. “I can’t be alive like this.” He threw up on himself and the world went dark.
“We keep going,” he heard Gary say, his voice faint, distant. “I’ll explain the mistake…”
CHAPTER X
Atticus woke up, naked and alone, on a bed that may as well have been a boulder. Lacerations ran up and down his legs from where he’d been bled. From his stomach to his toes, the skin was tender, inflamed—one unending landscape of raised, red flesh. It bubbled when he moved, so he stayed put instead, and wondered where he was.
The room was small, windowless. It smelled like feet and dust. Bedlam? He could hear people outside, a horse trotting down the street. Across the room, his bag, and James’ and Gary’s sat. I hope they didn’t make a big fuss dragging me in. He tried to move his leg, but the dried blood kept it in place. Otherwise, Blythe and Bon know we’re here. He thought of water, and though the thought appealed to him, the need wasn’t there.
“They were hunting it,” Atticus mumbled, counting the bite marks on his body. “I shouldn’t be here.” He touched two large holes. The skin around them felt soft, sticky, like the inside of an old apple. “One of those little snakes should’ve been enough to put me down.”