Chapter 10
When I come to, everything is still dark. In just a moment, shapes around me start coming into view. It’s the first shape I recognize that calms me—it’s Maze. Here, taken just like me, lying in a crumpled mess near a small fire. And then I take it all in—the many small fires, all around us, and the tall shadows flitting between dark trees. Each one shuffling about in some kind of orchestrated dance. I watch, my head swimming in fog for what seems forever—and only after the red men start chattering loudly do I remember my leg. I tell my hand to check the wound but my hand won’t move—all of my fingers are tight, tied behind my back. I try to move my legs but find the same sensation. I’m completely bound. And then, as flickering light brings Maze into clearer view, I see the dark lines coiled around her legs. We’re both tied up.
The chatter dies down suddenly, almost at the same time as the strange dancing movements stop. And then I see why. Enormous walls of soft blackness blot out the woods. Hulking shapes with spears rising from their heads, antlers sprouting in every direction—Red Horns. They march forward in a row, uniform and quiet, massive, and then, they just sit on the ground near the fires. The rest sit too, in a circle around the antlered ones, and then, in a very strange language, they begin to talk. It’s nearly impossible to take anything away from it but the tone—they sound calm suddenly, unlike the guttural chanting. Like they’re having an intelligent conversation. Even the big ones seem to be talking. And as they speak, it dawns on me that there is a possibility that they are entirely human—as if until now I’d thought that the Nefandus were aliens, otherworldly nightmares spawned from some hellish portal. They’re just people—covered in red, implanted with antlers, but people, following some strange dogma, just like Garren had said. A polar opposite of the Fatherhood, or perhaps some complement of it. But I wait and listen, hoping for any words that I can understand. There’s nothing. Even still, I can’t stop a fleeting thought that rises in me—the idea that they’re really just people behind costumes, and that since they didn’t kill us, kept us alive for some reason, there is still hope. I remember for a moment that one of the lanky ones spoke English to me once. And maybe they do understand English, and they’ll talk to us, and they’ll be able to reason perfectly fine. They’ll find out we aren’t God worshippers, or Resistance members—that we’re just trying to find our way out to the great big cut in the sky—the tower that everyone on this planet must have a word for, an awe for, a desire to know more about. And it’s when I’m filled with these ideas, and the feeling that I have to act soon while I have hope because there might not be much time left, I speak:
“Hello.” I say it softly. And then, when I realize I’m speaking so weakly that no one can hear me, I try again. It’s the third time I say it that I notice some of the dark faces turn in my direction. One of the creatures rises and walks over, and then, the rest resume their strange conversation, completely ignoring me.
He gets close enough to look at my face, then kneels down to me.
“You are alive,” he says.
“Please don’t kill us,” is all I can choke out.
“It is a very special kind of death for you. There is eternal honor in it.”
“No—please—no.”
“To be sacrificed for the second coming of Baal-zebub—I would that it were my own honor to take tonight,” says the voice, and then, he just rises and leaves me. I call after him to no avail. And all at once, the horror of it—realizing for certain we are going to be sacrifices—makes me start crying. I can’t help it. The sobs twist my throat up but it’s uncontrollable. My body shakes and I try to quiet myself again but I can’t stop it. None of the Nefandus pay any attention to me though, and I only stop when I hear the sound of my name. It’s almost as if it comes to me from a dream—it’s Maze’s voice. Somehow she’s awake, and she’s rolled closer to me.
“Wills,” she says again. My eyes watch her squirm slowly over the dirt, and then I look back to the circle of red men by the fire to see if they notice. Not one of them looks back.
“They’re going to kill us,” I tell her.
“They haven’t yet,” she whispers. And then, with more effort than before, she throws her body, pulling it almost against mine.
“I’m going to try to turn around, so our hands line up,” she says, and I already know—she thinks we can escape. That she can just untie us and we’ll walk right out of this.
“I lost my knife,” I tell her as she presses in closer.
“I don’t need it,” she says.
And then, the moment she twists around, putting her back against mine as I roll over too so that we’re back to back, I hear the shout. It’s anger, and though I don’t understand the words, I know what’s coming. The kick comes suddenly out of the darkness, lightning drilling into my chest. I cry out, and then I hear Maze cry too—a sharp squeal of pain that wrenches the air from my lungs. She cries again as the man kicks her twice, and then I hear the dragging—her body being taken away from me. When I turn again, I barely see her in the distance, curled under a tree. The red walker kneels down and I know right away—he’s tying her to the trunk. And without another moment to let the pain settle, the red one comes back, lowers again so that I’ll hear, and speaks to me:
“It is better to be fully awake,” he says. And then, he’s away again. I look at Maze, and I see her face moving, as if she’s silently mouthing words to me. I shake my head, letting her know I can’t tell what she’s saying. And then, after she looks at them, checking to see if they’re paying attention to us still, she says it loud and clear.
“I don’t know what to do.”
I hear the real message—it’s in the way she says it. She’s scared. And for the life of me I can’t remember ever seeing her scared. The sound of her fear sinks in hard and crushes me. There’s nothing left. No hope of salvation.
Suddenly, without my own willing it, a lifetime of brainwashing kicks in—the kneejerk reaction that’s been programmed into me—an instinct I’ve been conditioned to have and have fought against for years—to pray to God for help. My mind spins with the prayers of the Fathers—their pleas for divine mercy. I try to push the thought out of my head like its poison. And as the Fathers’ voices leave my head, I realize I’ve seen enough now. Enough to be convinced that it is only us who can get us out of this alive, and even if Maze is giving up, I’m not going to. I won’t surrender to God’s will and have faith, or to Maze’s ability to solve everything anymore. I’ll do it myself.
I begin to work my wrists, testing just how tight the rope is, and how much wiggle room they’ve left me. When I find enough to maneuver along the ground with my hands, I start to slide back along the ground, grating against the dirt, then pausing and waiting and watching, searching, hoping to crawl onto a rock. Anything sharp to start rubbing. And as I search blindly, all I can wonder is how long it will be before the sacrifice starts. Part of me thinks they’ll do it in a few minutes, but then, after another half-hour of fruitless writhing passes, I think they’re going to wait. That they’ve collected us to be brought somewhere else, to be sacrificed tomorrow, or maybe even the next day. It’s a determination I’ve never felt before in my life, but for all my furtive squirming, I find no rocks. Just soft soil. Nothing to cut the rope against. And my resolve slowly starts to die out.
It’s what feels like hours later when I hear loud noises start up. The guttural chants again, telling me that the Nefandus have started to stir, and when I look toward the fires, I see a body being dragged. I start to choke up, because I realize it must be Maze and they’re going to kill her first. But then I see clearly the face—it’s Logs. They’re pulling him along and he looks completely lifeless. I watch his body hump up and down over bumps and think about how much pain he’s in. But then it dawns me—he’s already dead.
The next thing I know, before I can take any more stock of what’s happening, I’m surrounded. They tug at my feet first, and then another one swoops in and lifts my shoul
ders. For all of my effort, they just cinch my body tighter. All the time I spent rubbing my wrists against the ground has done nothing to loosen the ropes, and it’s all I can do to watch the back of Logs’s head. I twist around, looking for Maze, wondering if it’s time to start screaming yet—some kind of last-ditch call for help. Like Garren will be right there in the forest with his gun to save us. But there’s no one—not her or anyone else. Just the hot throng of the Nefandus and their incoherent grunts and the blackness of night.
I can’t tell how far they’ve hauled me into the forest when I see the long slab of granite. A gray table under the starlight, wide enough to lay several bodies across. And there on top already is Maze. Her eyes are pasted to the sky, and one of the Red Horns is standing over her. It’s what’s in his hand that causes the first shriek to erupt from my gut: a long sickle of sharpened wood and metal, fastened with wrappings to a spear like the others carry. He swings it wildly. I expect him to drive it right down into her at any moment, but each swipe misses her, and I realize it’s another dance.
The moment the shriek issues from my lips, the walkers snarl and tighten harder, burning my arms and bruising my neck with their fists. Pain ripples down my body, stifling the next cry I try to make. But the first shriek was enough to draw Maze’s attention. Even as she seems to recognize me, her eyes are glazed, and her mouth moves slowly but nothing comes out. It’s some kind of one word reply to my presence. And then it hits me—she mouths it again. “I’m sorry.” Just enough to tell me in her last breath that she blames herself for what’s about to happen to us.
They lay me down on the table next to Logs, his body between me and Maze. In one loud chant and movement, they start to flip us so that our bellies are flush against the rock, and then the singing begins. At first it starts with the same inaudible chanting, but then it turns to a beautiful melody, and the words become clear. Some of them I recognize. Against the volume of the song and the words, footsteps start to clap around the table, a frenzied rhythm of red bodies. Some of them, when I can crane my neck up a bit, are holding big cups. Others whip their spears around wildly, up and down with the beat of the song. But it’s the words. They slice right through me.
“And Satan said unto his disciples: Go now, and eat the flesh. It is my body, as it is theirs, and it is given up for you!” says a single, booming voice.
And then, in concert the rest reply: “Laus sit Satanas!”
The booming voice returns, “For Saint Baal!”
And then, twisting my neck back to see a red form stepping onto the table, I watch the Red Horn raise his sickle, turn its point toward us, and thrust down as hard as he can. The noise from Logs, causing me to realize instantly that he’s not dead, cuts through me. It’s a watery gurgle of extreme agony, but his voice is shredded of life that fast, and the scream dies away. The sickle rises again, and a frenzy of the red arms gather by the edges of the table, lowering their cups down. I can barely see it, but that quickly, I understand—the blood pools out from Logs’s body and runs along sloped rivulets carved into the table, carrying what was once Logs’s life down tiny streams to the waiting cups. The crouching figures bob up and down in sharp motion, singing “Sanguis Satanas” over and over. The sickle stabs down again and impales Logs’s body, spraying liquid drops of heat into my eye, making me blink and lose sight of everything. I bat my eyes to see again, certain that I’ll be next. But before the Red Horn moves to Maze or me, there’s the sound of sawing over top of us. I try as hard as I can, but I can’t see a thing. Through Log’s still body, whose only remaining life is the warmth of his blood, emanating out and over me somehow, I can no longer see Maze.
“Maze!” I yell. But the chanting and the sawing sounds are too loud and I know she can’t hear me. It hits me that they must have already started to hurt her, as the sound of the sickle smashing down so many times makes me know I was wrong to assume it had been landing on Logs each time. I feel the last bit of desperation slip out of me, the last bit of hope, and it’s like a great dark whirl of deflation in my chest has released the last bits of my soul—as if I can just succumb to the madness, the bad dream of this all—that I’m really just sitting in the lawn still, under Acadian trees, drawing my picture, shadowed by the eaves of the Acadian houses, cool under the lush overgrowth, angry at my mother and the Fatherhood. It’s the sensation that this is still somehow really yesterday. But the feeling of surrender is gutted suddenly by something far worse the very next instant, a void darker than anything I’ve ever known—something that swallows up every bit of future and past I ever had. This is the last I’ll know of Maze. Of myself. The mind I’ve swum through. Put so much time into figuring out.
I hear a soft noise from Maze, enough to pull me from my darkness and open my eyes again. Dancing now, behind crouched forms that duck and drink from the streams of blood, some of the Nefandus start to swing objects through the air. At first I don’t recognize what they have, but soon, when one of the objects is large enough that I recognize its color—the color of skin—I know. They sawed him apart. Before I shut my eyes again, wiggling my hands one last time to be sure there’s no chance of freeing myself, I make out the shape of a severed foot. And then, I can’t help but keep watching—the man puts the foot into his mouth. Red shines and runs on top of the dark ink skin, and stark white teeth appear just for a moment. In the next instant, he thrusts the leg out and strands of skin rip off, dangling from teeth and lips. Another creature comes and takes the remains of the foot, and they pass it around. A dizzying chant resounds: “Lux in tenebris.” Within the clamor something like drums start to beat. They hit softly at first, but it grows steadily louder. And then, suddenly, everything silences. Only one voice continues:
“One life has been given up for you, oh savior. And now, we offer the second of the trinity.”
The voice is like syrup, deep and slow. But I know what the words mean. I open my eyes one last time and twist my head. And it’s at that moment that I realize they’re not going to kill me next, but Maze, because the Red Horn steps right over me and goes to her. I see her plainly now that there’s nothing left of Logs’s body between us. Her eyes are down and closed, facing right into the granite.
“Maze,” I say, too softly to be heard. I feel the desperate need to comfort her somehow. As if I can offer some last bit of solace. But there’s nothing. And there’s only one thing I know to say—the only thing that I’ve ever wanted to say to her, that I need her to know. And it hits me that I’m really saying it for myself—one last selfish act before she dies.
“I love you.”
There’s no reaction from her, and I know she must have already passed out from shock, and it angers me that I haven’t blacked out too. The Red Horn’s strike is surreal, his arms going in slow motion. The red faces bounce a circuit around the rim of the table, cups in hand again, calling out the same words as before.
Suddenly, as the sickle starts to fall, the chant changes.
“Stupri corporum,” they yell, over and over in quick succession. Then, the sickle pauses, and the others in the group call back: “Preserve her for it!”
When the sickle starts to move again, and the red faces crouch in anticipation for the renewed streams of blood, Maze’s blood, I close my eyes for good. I can’t watch it.
The minute the black closes in, I hear the noise—it’s different, somehow more like the drum sound than the suction that sounded when the sickle struck Logs. A sinking in my chest causes me to pull my head up—as there’s something familiar to the sound, and it’s not the drum. When I look to see the aftermath, expecting the closed look of death on her face, her eyes are wide open. She’s wide awake, staring right at me. Then I see the Red Horn, standing frozen over her, his sickle paralyzed, stunned by the noise, and it hits me—it’s the sound of a gun, somewhere deep in the woods, the same as last night. The forbidden artifact Garren had wielded, the fiery bomb of light that mowed down the red men. Suddenly all of the Nefandus are paused, staring off
into the forest in the same direction. And then, it sounds again, this time much closer.
A giant pressure grounds into my calf as the Red Horn steps over my body, hopping off the table. The entire throng starts to disperse from the rim of the table, dropping their cups. They frantically squish together into a tight pack, the biggest Red Horns uniting in the center. That’s when I twist around just enough to see the first shot hit.
The bang is so loud this time that it stings my ears and my instinct is to poke my fingers in to stop the pain but I can’t. It’s all I can do to watch—the head of one of the smaller Nefandus blows apart. His red body falls backward from the edge of the group, toppling into another. More gun blasts sound. One of the antler beasts roars something I can’t understand. I see a giant form, standing alongside several others, drop to the ground and out of view. And just as quickly as they formed their pack, the whole group scatters, breaking apart and fleeing in separate directions. Only one stays behind, wounded, struggling to his feet. It’s one of the biggest Red Horns, but for all his strength he can’t lift his leg, like it’s been destroyed by the gun. When he half raises his body to stand, the snapping pop of his bone sends him crashing back down to the earth. Fists pound into the ground to prevent his head from hitting first, and then, slowly and from behind, I watch him raise his antlers and point them toward to the forest. That’s when I see the shadow.
WIPE (A Post-Apocalyptic Story) Page 13