by Scott Hale
“I don’t know!” Bon covered his face with his hands, but the flames burned too hot to keep them there. “Blythe had the corpse cart. We went, oh god, please!” With wide, wet eyes, he looked back at Bedlam for help, but the crowd’s attention was fixed on Atticus.
“Where’d he go?” Atticus stepped on Bon’s chest, brought the torch in closer. His neck no longer hurt, he realized, but he felt sick, as though his soul had rotted inside him. “Where’s Blythe?” He pulled the torch away as the smell of burnt hair reached his nose.
“I can’t tell…” He closed his eyes and cried out. Inside his mouth, Atticus saw vermillion veins weaving through the gaps in his teeth, heading toward his lips, to repair him. “The plantation, the plantation outside Cathedra,” he admitted.
Seeing the veins, Atticus knelt down and stripped the glove off Bon’s right hand. Bedlam gasped as he gasped. The soldier’s entire hand was infested with the growths. They seemed to be pumping something into his bulging skin.
Do it, Clementine and Will whispered inside him, and so he did. He took the glove and put it on. Believing Bon had told him all he could, he stepped down on his ribcage, pushed the torch into his face, and held it there, until there was nothing left but charred bone.
CHAPTER XI
The woman he heard called Hex was the first to Atticus’ side. As he stood there, staring at what he’d done to Bon, Hex grabbed his hand and ran off while pulling him behind her. Gary and James covered him as the crowd converged, eager to touch their new undead lord and savior.
“What’s going on?” Atticus cringed as Hex, who was no more than a blur to him, ripped out the remaining arrows from him. His surroundings slowed, smeared. He’d done what needed to be done, and now his body was going to get what was coming to it. “Who are you?”
“A friend, I’m thinking.” Hex led him off the bridge. “There,” she said, pointing to the nearest alley on the east side. “Down there.”
“Your information was good,” James, no Gary… no, James, said. “Bon just found me first.”
“I’m sorry,” Hex said.
The alley widened as they went in. Its tops stretched skyward, into a space of sand and bone.
“If I had known—”
Human shadows peered over the precipice of the alley. He could feel their judgment, their hate, spilling over from above.
“How is he still standing?” A grotesque shape that must’ve been James stirred beside him. “He doesn’t look good.”
“I think he’s dying.” Atticus followed Gary’s voice. Where the ghoul should have been, he found a patch of Death’s Dilemma.
“You said that wasn’t possible—”
The buildings dissolved. In their place, the walls of the Membrane grew. Thick curtains of flesh cordoned off the alley, preventing him from going any further. He stumbled, fell to his hands as the ground gave way to gray matter.
“No, no!” He pulled back, ripping his fingers out of the tough folds. “Herbert, help,” he cried. Maybe the old man was somewhere nearby. I can’t go back.
Thump, thump, thump. Atticus’ eyes darted back and forth as he turned and searched for the source of the sound. White sand cascaded in front of him from the vermillion heaven above.
Thump, thump, thump. Atticus knew the noise but couldn’t place it. The Membrane grew over where the shadows had been. But he could still see them there, behind the translucent film, clawing at it.
Thump, thump, thump. Atticus closed his hand. Hex’s hand still held it, even though she was gone. He went backward, back the way they’d come, hoping to stumble into Bedlam. As the gray matter sucked on his ankles with every plodding step, he sensed the pull of the Abyss on his very bones.
Thump, thump, thump. It’s behind me, he thought, turning around. Out of the darkness, a shepherd came, cracking its crook against the ground. It walked with its head down, hair and hat hiding its face. From the pockets of its coat, pink bandages hung, swaying back and forth.
“Hold it,” Atticus said. “Stop.”
The shepherd outstretched its arm and pointed at him. Holding that position, it ran. Before Atticus could do anything, the shepherd was already there, choking him—it’s long, painted fingernails gouging his throat.
“Get off me, god damn it,” Atticus rasped. The creature lifted him by his neck. The veins in his forehead bulged. Legs flailing, he punched its arm and spat in its face, but the shepherd would not be moved. It was going to do what it had to—
Atticus shot out of bed and crashed onto the floor. The pus sacs on his legs burst. He willed his eyes to sight, to see where he’d ended up now. Another room, not much different from the last. It may have been the same from before, Atticus couldn’t be sure; but instead of it just being Gary visiting him, he now had James and the stranger, Hex, as well.
“You can stay,” he grumbled, speaking to the woman. “Don’t smell so bad with you here, perfuming up the place.”
“Appreciate that,” Hex said. She crossed her arms, both of which were Corrupted, and smiled.
The woman was young, pretty, but appeared as though she didn’t want to be. She wore a plain green dress that kept her modesty intact and her figure featureless. Her hair was a mess of dyed blue braids and strands going every which way. What she had, regardless of how it looked on her, wasn’t cheap, but unlike those as well off as she probably was, she didn’t wear make-up to make up for her flaws. It was the kind of confidence that men wouldn’t understand, because what she did, she didn’t do for them. Atticus knew this, but only because Clementine had taught him how to see it.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked.
“No.” Atticus gently ran his finger along his neck. Someone had stitched it back up.
“I told them,” Gary said, coming forward like a witness to give testimony. “They needed to know.”
“He did.” Atticus gave a weak nod to James. “She didn’t.” He touched the arrow holes, felt their fatality with the tips of his fingers.
“Explains a lot,” James said. He crossed the room and dropped to his knees. “What the hell?” Carefully, as though trying to comfort a cactus, he put his arm around Atticus. “You don’t want to talk about it, do you?”
“Don’t know if I should.” Atticus’ eyes went back and forth between Hex’s arms. “You must be real popular with the Night Terrors.”
“Popular with most,” she said. “I can get you to Blythe.”
Atticus scowled at the woman. Sighing, he said, “You don’t know me. Don’t worry on my wants.”
“They killed you and your family. Took their bodies but left yours. Your friend here brought you back. Said he can bring them back, too. You just need them bodies.”
Gary coughed and bit the inside of his mouth. Atticus had known the ghoul long enough to know he was hiding something.
“I can get you to Blythe,” Hex carried on.
“You trust her?” Atticus slowly stood. Using James for support, he made it to the bed.
Back when he worked for Poe, he would’ve kept clammed up, wouldn’t have said a damn thing around that damn woman. But to make sense of this secret, he had to share it. Dead or alive, it wasn’t a burden he could bear alone.
“It’s been awhile.” James sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched, like the old days. “I know a lot of people I didn’t before. I trust her, though. She’s—”
“I can speak for myself,” Hex interrupted. She pulled open the door, left, and came back with a rickety chair. “Let’s hope it holds,” she said, as she took a seat, weight giving it the shakes. “Name’s Hex, which I’m guessing you gathered. Kind of name you only need to hear once to remember. I own a few businesses. A jewelry shop, a tavern, and the inn next to it.”
“That where we are?”
“The inn?” Hex shook her head. “No, this is my home.”
“Look about the same.”
“Part of the attic. It’s unfinished,” she said, offended.
Is th
is what’ll be for me from now on? Blackouts and backroom gatherings? He squinted at Hex, and tried to look past her, through the doorway. How many more rooms like this will there be until it’s all over?
“James and I met each other a few years ago, back when my husband was living,” she continued. “Dead now, though. Obviously.”
“You don’t sound broken up over it,” Atticus remarked. He closed his eyes and saw Bon’s face, sizzling flesh oozing off it.
“I’m from the coast, down south a ways. He found me there and never brought me back. He mined those parts, mined the people that took interest in the trade, too. He was a kind man, taught me a lot. But there wasn’t much love between us.”
“He died and left everything to her,” James said. “She opened up shop here in Bedlam. Took me and Elijah in after… everything that happened. Hex has no love for Eldrus. Atticus, she knows how to get back at them, and has the money to do it. We’ll need more preparation if we’re going to get to Blythe. Hell, or even get out of Bedlam.”
“All right,” Atticus said. “But I’m not leading some rebellion. I saw the way the crowd was looking at me. I’m not doing that.” He furrowed his brow and, to Gary, said, “You’re awfully quiet.”
The ghoul cleared his throat, tainting the air with his cough. “I thought you were dead for good.”
“No, but I saw something this time. It was more than passing out.” He ran his hands through his oily hair and realized how badly he must smell. “You sure you told them everything?”
“More or less.”
“I imagine if someone told me all that, I’d have a hard time believing it.”
“I watched you die twice, Atticus,” James said.
“Once was enough for me,” Hex quipped. “Gary’s a ghoul. Not all that hard to believe someone can come back.”
“I never died,” Gary corrected. “Ghoulism is different.”
“The Membrane? The Abyss? Mr. Haemo?” Atticus expected outrage. These were matters of the afterlife, after all, but they couldn’t have appeared any more unimpressed. Were they planning a conspiracy? Mutiny? He looked at his friends and, for another paranoid moment, saw enemies.
Gary nodded. “All of it.”
“I’m a selfish woman,” Hex said, shifting on the chair. “I’m helping you because if you can’t die, then you’re my best bet at getting my brother back.”
Atticus raised an eyebrow. “We’re not in the resurrection business, ma’am.”
“He’s not dead, I don’t think. Ichor, my brother… the last letter he sent me was about the plantation. Carpenter Plantation. The one outside Cathedra where Blythe’s at. Got it out, somehow, the letter. Said they were holding him prisoner there with others. Protestors.”
“That’s where Clementine and Will are.”
“Lots of bodies go through there. Ichor said the land around it is sick. Cathedra is a proud place. Eldrus or not, they don’t take what the soldiers are doing there lightly.”
Gary, twitching, said anxiously, “Hence the protests.”
“I want to see the letter,” Atticus said. The warmth coming off James comforted him. “A lot has happened a lot faster than I can handle.”
Hex nodded, saying, “I understand.” She stood, headed for the door. “Think of it as a contract. I’ll pay you in weapons and supplies. We’ll both get what we want.”
“I’m not interested in turning the murder of family into a partnership,” Atticus spat angrily.
“We’re down a horse,” James said. “We didn’t bring much with us. I trust Hex, Atticus. You brought me here for my connections. She’s one of them, and I trust her. Things have gone… unexpectedly… but I don’t know if we’ll get this opportunity again.”
“Mmm.” Atticus swallowed hard. A few stitches snapped; his neck opened up where they broke.
“What did you see?” Gary followed Hex with his glassy gaze until she left the room. “When you died, what did you see?”
“You holding something back?” Atticus gripped the bedsheets as he spoke. “Can’t get you to shut up half the time. I’m not right, I know that, but neither are you. Not since Mr. Haemo. Are you sick from the ritual? What?” Atticus exhaled and got to his feet. “Close that door and say what’s on your mind, god damn it.”
Gary did as he was told and slammed the door shut. Pulling up his pants, which were halfway down his bony ass, he said, “The ritual took a lot of me, boss.” He lifted his shirt. His chest was flayed, and half his ribcage was exposed. “A lot of ghoul flesh went into finding you. But I’ll be fine. Did you see the Membrane when you slept?”
Atticus lowered his head. He felt like an asshole; so, like an asshole, he just nodded weakly.
“Until you woke up on that bed, you were gone. Body went stiff and cold. The Abyss is trying to get you back, but somehow, you’re fighting it off.”
“Like a cat. Nine lives,” James added innocently.
“Nine or nine thousand, I don’t know. But you’re not dying right away. It’s like you’re getting used to it. Next time, it’ll take longer, I think.” The ghoul grabbed his head and groaned. “Did you see it? The shepherd?”
“Yes,” Atticus blurted out, nodding as he spoke. “Yes, yeah, I did. The first time I was down there, and then just now. What are they?”
“They are their name. I’d heard of them, but Mr. Haemo… we… he explained… explained it to me.” Gary stopped speaking and, when he’d stopped stuttering, started again. “Fuck, sorry. Don’t mind…”
Atticus cocked his head. “What’s wrong?”
Gary ignored him and said, “When something escapes the Membrane or the Abyss, the shepherds follow. They give you some time to die again, but if you don’t, then they come for you. They won’t kill you, Mr. Haemo said. They’ll just take you, all of you, body and soul, back to the Membrane. If that happens, that’s it. No ritual can pull you out again.”
“Are you still alive when a shepherd sends you back to the Membrane?” James asked, his voice quivering.
Gary covered his face as though he were about to cry. “I don’t know,” he whimpered. “Atticus, if you saw one, that means it’ll be coming for you soon, too.”
“If I bring Clementine and Will back, they’ll have shepherds of their own, right?”
Gary stared at him blankly.
“Right?” he snarled.
“Yeah.” The ghoul picked a tooth out of its gum and flung it at the floor.
For the first time since he woke, he thought of Bon’s glove, which no one had bothered to strip off him. The murder was no more than a memory that, like a knife, would dull after daily use. But this trophy, on the other hand, would outlast all recollections. For as long as he controlled it, the glove’s texture would hold its history. He touched it, tightened it, and as he went back once again to the bridge, found himself imagining what else he may add to his new collection.
“Can the shepherds be killed?” Atticus said at last. He splayed his fingers to stretch the glove’s leather.
“Everything can die. It’s just a matter of finding their weakness,” Gary said.
“We better hurry then,” Atticus said, hand balling into a fist. “Before they find mine.”
CHAPTER XII
Getting out of Bedlam was going to be more difficult than it should’ve been. Atticus had been dead through most of it, but during the night and the dawning hours, his resistance had inspired a revolt. Those who’d watched him kill Bon without recourse from the other soldiers took this as permission to be shitheads. They marched through the streets, stirring up the anger the festivities had settled.
According to Hex, who’d ducked out to have a look shortly after she found the letter from her brother, “Gravedigger” had been written in several places across the town.
“Someone probably heard Bon call me that,” Atticus mumbled, when Hex had told him what she’d seen.
“You’re their hero,” she joked, as she hauled crates full of random pieces of armor out of t
he basement.
“Not my intention.” He moved to take the crate, but she, like Clementine, hadn’t the stomach for unnecessary gentlemanly gestures. So he scratched his crotch instead and said, “His ‘brothers’ should’ve stopped me.”
“Well, you see a good thing and you take it.” She dropped the crate and disappeared down the stairs for another one. Shouting, she said, “He had it coming. Just no one knew when it was going to get here.”
When the morning fog had finally rolled in, blanketing Bedlam in otherworldly breaths, they mounted their horses and made their move. Soldiers patrolled the streets, drawn swords sneering silver in the pale light.
Hex, who’d cloaked her new companions from head to toe, kept them to the denser parts of town. She made sure to point out the graffiti across the buildings and ground, which read “Gravedigger,” just as she’d claimed.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Gary asked, from the middle of their procession.
Atticus’ heart dropped. The last time the ghoul had left Gallows’ graveyard had been over thirty years ago. He kept expecting Gary to abandon ship and swim for safer shores, but still he stayed.
“Very carefully,” Hex said. She led them off the main road and down to the riverbank. “We’re a ragtag-looking group, what with all these cloaks and this secrecy.”
“Have any friends in Cathedra?” Atticus asked, grateful that the surging river masked the sounds of their horses.
Hex shook her head. “None worth more than how far I can throw them. I can sweet-talk us out of a bind. Maybe. But once we reach the woods, we’re on our own.”
Near the edge of Bedlam, where the river widened under a collapsing archway, the fog sat thick and unmoving. It was as though some ancient spider had passed through, leaving its web atop the waters, to catch insects who’d thought they’d slipped their captors.
Hex and James rode side-by-side, buddy-like, and steered them in the right direction. When they told Atticus and Gary to go left, they went left. And when they told them to go straight, they went straight. And then when they told them to quit their jabbering, they did that, too.