Brimstone

by Daniel Foster

  Garret dragged himself home from the shop. His fight with Pa had turned the rest of the day into a feel sorry for yourself, gloom-fest. Or at least so Pa had seemed to think. He’d ghosted around the shop, a morose expression on his face, and had nothing to say. Garret had heard him say it all before, anyway. “It’s so hard to love somebody, son.” Or, “I promised to stand by her, and that’s what I’m gonna do,” or Garret’s personal favorite, “Son, she’s your mother.”

  Garret opened the front door and entered the house without washing at the pump first. He entered the kitchen, too bent on fixing his numbing hunger to care how black and filthy his hands were. He scrounged here and there. The bread box was empty. The pantry contained flour, dried beans, strings of onions, canned potatoes, canned tomatoes, canned pickles, canned pigs’ feet. Fine. Garret pulled down a jar of the pigs’ feet and muscled the lid off with his blacksmith’s grip.

  His Ma was down the hall he thought dully, as he slumped at the table and dug a pig’s foot out of the jar with his dirty hands, blackening the vinegar and water. He could hear her voice. She was probably…

  Wait a minute. His fatigue evaporated. Garret was on his feet and stalking around the table like a cougar. He crossed the living room and entered the hall. He rounded his and Sarn’s bedroom door. His mother was sitting on the bed with Sarn. She was saying something, to which Sarn, who looked uncomfortable, was trying to form a non-confrontational response. Garret heard not a word of it. Rage bloomed through his body, blasting everything from his mind but an animalistic desire to protect and safeguard, no matter what was required.

  “Ma,” he said, his voice snapping and crackling like a black, icy lake, breaking under too much weight. “What. The hell. Are you doing?”

  She turned, sliding her hand quickly off its position high on Sarn’s thigh. Sarn seemed to relax a little. Garret didn’t. He wasn’t thinking. But he wasn’t crossing the threshold either.

  Fear crossed his mother’s face. “Garret? I… we were just talking.”

  “Get. Out.”

  After sitting for a paralyzed moment, she went. Garret’s anger went too, leaving him weak and confused. He wasn’t sure what he had done, but he felt sick. He sagged against the door facing. His back felt rubbery. When Garret looked up, Sarn was looking at him with a guarded expression, and Garret had no idea what it meant. Garret left as quickly as he could, fumbled his jacket out of the closet and went out into the cold. It didn’t matter where.

  Chapter 7

  Germany, 1589

  Youngblood ran hard toward the tree box of the she-pup to whom belonged the sound, “Gerda.” To his flanks, just far enough behind to follow his lead, his older cousin and sister kept pace. He hadn’t waited for any of the others to come with him. His cousin and sister didn’t know what made him run as he did, but they followed. It gave Youngblood courage.

  The deadwalker was everywhere now, invading their forest in the same way the shakes, weakness, and tiredness sometimes invaded the pack during White Ground. The older members steered the pack hunts away from the deadwalker’s grounds, but its territory kept growing, and a few moments ago, they had run across what was left after it had finished satisfying itself. The memory was not a good one. The scent of it had been burned so strongly into Youngblood’s nose that the recollection made him snuff as he ran.

  The pack had trailed a deer through the early morning, running it to exhaustion. As the dawn approached, the deer’s scent freshened, meaning they were closing, and the deer’s path wavered from weariness. In a hot frenzy, the pack barreled towards the end of the chase, but as soon as Youngblood knew the fallen deer would lie no further than over the next rise, the scent of the deadwalker covered the trail. Mixed with it was the smell of man, and blood.

  The pack’s formation broke, all the wolves coming to a nervous halt. Youngblood and the rest paid mind to his uncles, the alphas, to see where they would lead. The alphas padded noiselessly to the base of the rise and conferred with each other through nose touches, flips of tails and ears. After a time of patience, and hearing nothing out of the ordinary, they slinked towards the crest of the rise. Youngblood and the rest followed timidly, any lower to the ground and they would have been on their bellies like snakes.

  At the crest, the uncles halted and released the tension from their shoulders and haunches. The rest of the pack came up around them in a tight group. Down the other side of the rise lay a nasty stillness, not a scent, but a feeling as thick and slimy as a bog. Waiting, rotting, treacherous. It was the feeling left behind when the deadwalker satisfied its needs. It clung like oil in a vulture’s feathers.

  Halfway down the slope lay a head, not of a deer, but of a human woman. Half of the head was gone. It had been split open down the middle. The wrinkly soft rounded thing that filled all heads lay in the woman’s half-skull like a nut cupped in a curled leaf. The deadwalker had taken a single bite out of the wrinkly softness before tossing the half-head aside.

  The deer which the pack had been trailing lay farther down the slope, its head torn free and crushed in a manner Youngblood had not seen before. It hadn’t been trampled as sometimes happened in feeding frenzies. The deer’s head had been crushed all around, as if encircled by fast-growing tree roots. The deer’s guts were strung around, flung carelessly from its body. The rest of the deer had been tossed aside. The deadwalker had eaten none of it, simply tortured and killed it. Youngblood did not understand how or why, but it seared every instinct within him to see the woman killed and the deer killed, but neither for food.

  The woman’s fear clung everywhere, even to the deer’s remains. Youngblood felt the afterimage of her spirit, just beyond the edge of his hearing and smell, not departing restfully as an animal’s spirit would, but clinging to the dirt and begging Youngblood for some sort of vengeance. Whimpers permeated the pack. Youngblood’s sister and one of his cousins sidled up to him. She laid her head on his back, and he touched his cousin’s flank with a comforting nose. To the other animals in the forest, wolves were death on fleet paws. Wolves chased, wolves tore to ribbons, wolves devoured. Wolves were agents of death, but only because they were built to fulfill the purpose of ending life so that new life could begin.

  The sticky shreds of flesh in the deadwalker’s wake had nothing to do with the rebirth of the forest. Even the smell seemed to shift as though it were crawling over the leaves and bark. It congealed in Youngblood’s nose and throat and left no doubt in his mind: as he knew the meaning of empty egg shells and discarded snake skins, so he knew that the deadwalker’s strength was growing.

  Youngblood did not notice any more pieces of the woman’s body until he heard the patter of blood in the leaves and turned his eyes towards the tree tops. The rest of her had fared as badly as her head. The various pieces of her body and internal organs were strung throughout the tree tops, each one impaled on a branch and driven all the way to the trunk. The wind keened down from on high, bringing wafts of the woman’s fear as ripe as if she was still screaming.

  Youngblood did not want to see, hear, or smell another thing. Neither did his family. The pack clustered tightly and slipped away into the forest, going anywhere, so long as it was away from the trail of the deadwalker. Youngblood, however, stayed where he was, frozen in indecision. His cousin and sister started after the pack, then halted to watch him. He looked from his pack, fleeing in silence, to the deadwalker’s scent path, leading towards the tree box of the she-pup.

  Youngblood edged near the carnage and sniffed where the creature had stepped. Another instinct boiled to the surface. He’d felt it many times before, but never regarding any creature outside of his pack. Protectiveness. He glanced at his sister and cousin. They had drawn near and were questioning him with their noses and ears. Perhaps together, the three of them could protect the she-pup.

  All this had happened moments ago. As Youngblood ran down the deadwalker’s trail, however, the deadwalker’s path curved, leading parallel, then away from the clearing
in which Gerda’s treebox stood. The deadwalker’s path began the gentle ascent to the low-lying hills. Youngblood veered from its trail, heading for the clearing with the tree den. His cousin and sister sidled up to him, and their steps took a nervous fall. They knew they approached man’s territory.

  Youngblood followed the circumference of the clearing just a few feet inside the tree line. He would not need to slow his frantic paws or put his nose to the ground if the deadwalker had stepped anywhere around the clearing. Its reek rose like steam. If the creature had come anywhere close to the clearing, he would smell it.

  He dodged through the trees, but didn’t respond to the curious, uncomfortable whines that escaped his cousin and sister’s nostrils as they ran. They trusted him. They would follow. Halfway around the clearing the stink of a thousand corpses grabbed him, pouncing on Youngblood’s nose. He stopped so fast that his sister and cousin separated and ran past him a ways, taking them right through the scent trail.

  Ears flat, tails curled, they looked back at him and pranced towards the deeper portion of the forest. Youngblood focused on the tree box, orange light coming through the windows, smoke trailing lazily from the rectangular rocks the man had piled towards the sky. His sister took a step towards him, followed by two steps away. She chuffed. Danger surrounded them in all its worst forms, and his sister and cousin did not understand the feeling which compelled him. They would not stay with him much longer.

  Youngblood listened to the woods, clearing, and treebox, but all was at peace. The monster had looked upon the treebox, but no more. The deadwalker’s scent was particularly strong, as a wolf’s scent was strong before mating or fighting. Youngblood sniffed further around the circumference of the clearing. His cousin and sister followed for a ways, but halted. Youngblood continued until he closed the loop. The deadwalker had approached the treebox from only the one side. It had stood, watching and waiting. Then it had left, retracing its steps.

  The deadwalker had watched the Gerda-pup, just as Youngblood did, but it did not care for her. It wanted something as twisted and torn from rightness as one half of the woman’s head had been torn from the other. Youngblood did not know what to do, but he was afraid for the Gerda-pup. He whined for his sister and cousin to join him, but they were gone.

  Two days before Molly’s birthday

  Garret drove the punch down through the blob of molten metal, gouging a hole big enough for the axe handle. The soon-to-be axe head spread as the metal was displaced by his blows. He was using unnecessary force. It was midafternoon. Pa still hadn’t returned from lunch.

  “What? I’m supposed to do the whole day’s work myself? Now I’m putting food on the table?” he asked the dim air. Or per usual, was Pa just stuck inside his own head, feeling sorry for himself and not thinking about his family? Frustrated, Garret quenched the entire axe head, and was fortunate he didn’t blow it in two.

  The door opened and Sarn stepped through. It made Garret feel a little better to see his brother. Until he noticed the dead skunk draped around Sarn’s neck.

  “What,” Garret demanded, pointing his hammer, “is that?”

  Sarn blinked slowly. “A baboon.”

  Garret gritted his teeth. “That’s gonna make you sick. Why did you put it around your neck?”

  Sarn looked at him with mild curiosity, as if Garret was some other form of life, something so stupid that Sarn was a bit surprised to find it could talk. Sarn spoke slowly. “It keeps my neck warm.”

  Garret’s arms fell limply to his side. “It’s a drinking contest, trying to talk to you. Why in the flying fuck do you have a dead skunk around your neck?!”

  At his tone, the decidedly not-dead skunk raised its head.

  Garret made it to the back wall of the shop so fast he surprised himself. Pressed against the wood, he shrieked, “You brought a live skunk into my shop? Get it out! Out! What’s wrong with you?”

  Sarn shrugged, clearly tired of the conversation. “You’re such a worry wart. It hasn’t sprayed.”

  Garret was dumbfounded. “What the hell do you…?! Who cares if it hasn’t…?! Christ, that would make sense to you! OUT!”

  Sarn let the door close on his shrug. No one else would have noticed any difference in Sarn’s slack, flat features, but Garret caught the hint of a smile. Only then did he hear the laughter. The laughter was running away from the window as fast as it could go. It was definitely Molly.

  Garret stomped across the shop and ripped the door open. Sarn would be long gone of course, but Garret was going to find his retreating back and yell something to put the fear of God into him. As soon as he came up with something.

  Instead, Sarn was standing just off the edge of the boardwalk. Molly was gone, but three older boys had hemmed Sarn in and were poking the skunk and laughing, trying to make it spray Sarn. It would get all of them in the process, but they were too dumb realize it. Garret ground his teeth.

  Sarn was big for a fourteen year old, but the other boys were all Garret’s age or older and there were three of them. Denny was the son of a tobacco and pig farmer, so he was three times the size any sixteen year old had rights to be. Next to him was his sidekick, Paul, a stout little dark-headed twit with the most punchable face Garret had ever seen, and to his left, with arms crossed over his cocky, well-built chest was Johnny Mullins, local ladies-man, who could also use a facial rearrangement.

  One of them pushed Sarn, which sent Garret’s temper through the roof and silenced all the voices of good sense reminding him that together, the three boys outweighed he and Sarn two to one.

  Nobody pushes my brother but me.

  “Hey buttface,” Garret yelled. “Hands off the skunk!”

  “Which one?” Johnny Mullins asked.

  That does it.

  Garret stomped out of the shop and towards Johnny, shucking his heavy apron as he went.

  “Fight, fight!” screamed two little boys up the street, and then came running. Heads turned their way. Now they had an audience, so Johnny put on his best cocky smile, and his buddies grouped around him. Garret stepped down off the boardwalk beside Sarn and together, they advanced. There would first be mouthing off, much bravado and puffing of chests, followed by pushing, cursing, and eventually scuffling. Garret wasn’t in the mood for any of it.

  Johnny picked a banal insult for his opening line. “Ooh, look,” Johnny said to his buddies, “the little blacksmith thinks I’m scared of—“

  Garret’s fist to the jaw cut him off. Followed immediately by a fist to the solar plexus, another to the jaw. By the time Johnny hit the ground, Garret had lost count. He just wasn’t in the mood for the chatter.

  It was on. Denny grabbed Garret’s suspenders and jerked him off of Johnny like he was peeling a banana. Sarn hit the ground beneath a pile of Paul. The skunk was airborne and not happy about it. Garret swung in a blind rage, but Denny was twice his size and within arm’s reach. It didn’t go well for Garret after that. Fists rained and would have bludgeoned Garret senseless but for the rage that kept him fighting like an idiot. He got his butt handed to him anyway.

  “Alright, break it up!” It was Mr. Orem, the fuzzy grocer-bear. He pulled Denny off of Garret as easily as Denny had pulled Garret off of Johnny. Sarn and Paul stood to the side. Paul looking sheepish, and Sarn looking more upset than injured. Paul would have a nice black eye, and a trickle of blood ran from Johnny’s nose. He folded his arms and glared at Garret.

  Garret floundered to his feet, blood running from his nose and lip, still looking for a grinning face to punch with his aching knuckles. Sheriff Halstead stepped in his way, the gold buttons gleaming on his green vest, his hat pulled low over his beady eyes and lush white moustache.

  “Young mister Vilner,” he said.

  Sure, Garret thought sullenly. Single me out.

  Halstead put his hands on his hips. “Is this the kind of businessman that’ll be running my town in a few years? Because I have to say,” he swung his hand at the circle of disgruntled, batter
ed boys around them. “I’m not impressed with the way he treats his clients.”

  Garret knew he needed to say No sir, and hang his head and play nice, but he was too upset from the day, the whole stupid week. Maybe the whole stupid life. He managed to keep his mouth closed, instead of saying something smart. It was as good as he could do at the moment. And frankly, as much as anyone seemed to deserve.

  Halstead watched Garret for a second, then turned away, shaking his head. “Get outta here, all of ya,” he ordered, waving his hands dismissively. Paul shuffled away in embarrassment. Denny looked down on Garret as he turned. Johnny gave him a big smile, then turned and sauntered down the street with Denny, whistling as he went. The crowd dissipated quickly, many of the town’s women shooting questioning glances at Garret and Sarn.

  The anger rushed out of Garret, leaving him weak and tired. His stomach hurt from the punches Denny had landed. He glanced at Sarn to make sure he wasn’t badly hurt. The stocky boy was crouched at the edge of the boardwalk, reaching back under it for something. Probably that blasted skunk. Other than a busted lip, he didn’t seem any the worse for wear, so Garret wiped the blood away from his nose and hauled himself quickly back into the shop, wanting to be away from the prying eyes.

  He shut the door, leaned against it for a minute, then began to root absently around on the workbench. The door opened and Sarn appeared, skunk draped around his neck. The thing still hadn’t sprayed.

  “Thanks,” Sarn said quietly.

  “For what?” Garret groused. “We both got our asses handed to us anyway.”

  Sarn stepped in, and the slack mask that usually covered his face was cracked, showing the hurting kid beneath. Garret had a hard time looking at it. It made him feel a little crazy.

  Sarn shuffled his feet. “I woulda got worse.”

  Garret slammed the broken pieces of iron in his hands back to the workbench. “You’re not supposed to get it at all! It’s not supposed to be this way! We’re not supposed to have to fight with everybody!”