by A. J. Ramsey
Dead Man’s Walk
by A.J. Ramsey
Text Copyright © 2016 A.J. Ramsey
All Rights Reserved
Dead Man’s Walk
Cover art by Rocking Book Covers
First Edition
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter One
~
April 4th 2056
The dead man is talking.
His words are unintelligible, muffled by a thick plastic curtain that hangs from the ceiling around his bed. It was once clear, but now it has yellowed with age. It disappears into the gray and brown tiles above and stretches to the floor. It piles in waving clumps around the bed, intentionally two feet longer than the room is tall.
The dead man tries to speak but is drowned out by loud fans that kick on over his head. A vent loudly sucks in air from the enclosed space. It passes through fabric filters and is cleaned. Then, it returns with a dull roar through another opening. The heavy curtain doesn’t move as the stale air cycles within the bubble.
The dead man’s mind had been elsewhere when he heard the sound of a zipper. The second curtain—this one, thinner, clearer, and newer—is pulled tight across the doorway to the room. Now, he stammers in shock as people enter his room of death. He has been waiting for them to arrive, waiting to be taken away, and yet, he has been surprised at the suddenness of their appearance.
His thoughts are jumbled, but he tries to remember arguments he has been preparing to say. He isn’t ready for this. He wants to return to childhood memories. Of playing in the park, of laughter, and love. The memory of his first kiss, with Janet at the stone quarry. It had been clumsy and quick. She had run away after. It had been on his mind as he wondered what she was doing now. Was she kissing someone else?
Through the barrier around his bed, his feeble protests are barely audible. The dead man tries to sit up and fails on his first attempt. Talking faster, his speech is jagged and chopped in his panic. He needs more time. There is never enough of it.
People move slowly into the room. There is no rush in their movements. It isn’t their death awaiting them. Not today anyway.
Stopping silently outside the second curtain, they are blurry, ghostly visions through the dirty barrier around the dead man’s bed. He can see now that there are four of them. One is a few inches shorter than the rest. Smaller across the shoulders. Two of them are average height for a man. They are blurry twins. He instinctively tries to raise a hand to tell them to stop but he can’t raise his arm.
In his panic, he has forgotten that his hands are tied to the bed. Thick cuffs are tied tight with thin strips of leather to metal bars that run the length of the bed frame. A thicker strip of leather wraps completely around his wrists, padded with wool on the inside to prevent chafing. Two more hold his feet to the bed. His limbs can move no more than two inches from their posts. He struggles anyways.
What he had thought of as his prison, is now his shield, the last barrier between him and death. He speaks rapidly, breathlessly trying to convince the four to not take the last step. To not open the final curtain.
Just wait, he tries to say. Another week. No. Another three days. Just 24 hours. He’ll be better then. They’ll see, there is nothing wrong. All he needs is time.
The four cannot give it to him.
The last cloudy ghost, tall and broad-shouldered, begins to grope along the curtain folds, trying to find the zipper. The dead man screams in ignored protest as the tall man opens the zipper and steps inside. The plastic barrier is only a foot away from the bed and the tall man crowds close out of necessity. With wide eyes, the man in the bed looks back into the eyes of his executioner.
They are oversized, round and oddly reflective. They show a wild eyed, unkempt man, pale and sweaty. They offer the dead man a reflection of himself and nothing more. He can’t see the eyes of the man beneath the mask that covers his entire face, from under his chin to his forehead.
On the right side of the mask, almost at the edge near his ear, is a round cylinder. The tall man’s breath sounds like the vent above as it’s amplified by the filter. It is a cold wind rushing through a tunnel. Where the man’s mouth should be, is the painted jaw of a skull. Thick white lines forming a grin of death.
The executioner wears a thick white wool jacket with a hood pulled over his head. Above the collar and beneath the bottom of the mask, only the neck of the tall man is exposed. The skin has thick, spiraling, dark blue lines. As the lines disappear under the shadow of the mask, just at the jaw line, they are edged with orange and yellow. For a moment, the dead man thinks he is indeed losing his mind, seeing blue men, before he realizes they are tattoos of flames. Fire rising from his lungs. His head, like a pot over an open flame.
The tall man stands on the dead man’s right side, near his head. The three others weave their way through the curtain. The smaller one, a woman he can see now, stands poised by his right foot. Her mask is similar to the tall man’s. Filter on the side, but no painted teeth over the mouth. Instead, real teeth hang from leather strips on the chin. They clink against one another as the woman moves her head. The two blurry twins are in focus now as they step through the curtain, going to the dead man's left side. Their masks are not adorned with any paint or bone. Instead, the eye sockets are crooked and oval. Like the eyes of giant insects.
The dead man begins to thrash harder. Shaking his entire body side to side, pulling tight on the cuffs on his wrist, attempting to finally break out of the bindings he had so meekly accepted three days ago. He had been so sure they would be temporary. Simply all part of the process.
The single thin sheet beneath him, soaked in sweat, begins to bunch up as he struggles. He tries to lift one side of his coffin off the ground, to flip over. Though, how that will help him he doesn’t know. He just wants to do anything other than lie here.
His struggle accomplishes nothing except to quickly exhaust him. The bindings are much too tight. Much too thick. The bed either is too heavy to flip or is bolted to the floor. Lessons have been learned over the years, and these measures have held men much larger than the dead man.
Stopping his struggle, he gasps, trying to catch his breath. He has been bedridden for three days, and his muscles are protesting their sudden use. The cool, stale air pumping in from above clings to the sweat on his arms and legs, and his body begins to shiver. His teeth click against each other as he stares into the blank ovals of the tall man.
Waiting.
“You know why we are here and what we have to do. Will you continue to struggle?”
The tall man finally speaks and it’s jarring and chilling. The mask didn’t move as he spoke. The voice comes from nowhere. It is muffled and hollow sounding, containing no emotion. No empathy. No pity. The masked creature speaks prepared lines. Threatening without threatening. ‘Will you continue to struggle?’ Meaning, will you make us use force for what comes next?
The dead man’s voice betrays him and instead of speaking, he shakes his head to say no. He wants to struggle, wants to fight, but he knows now is not the time. He will save his energy. A better time will come.
The tall man nods. With gloved hands, he reaches into a pocket on the coat he wears. He pulls out a hood of simple brown leather. It has no adornments, no paint, no bone, none of the plastic materials. Only two small eye holes and no opening for the mouth. It
is newly made, prepared just for this occasion. Even over the sweat and stench of the dead man, the fresh smell of the leather is powerful. He tenses as the hood is revealed, his body shrinking into the mattress, trying to sink through, to melt to the other side.
The hood is slowly, carefully, placed over the dead man’s face. The man in the bed gasps with fear as darkness descends. Light flashes back in his eyes as they straighten the hood. With every heavy breath, the mask puffs in and out. Pulling the man’s head off the bed, leather strips are used to tighten it to his face. His breath changes as they tug on the strips, it is shallow and quick. Growing panicked.
“Why?” The man cries out. Despite his promise, he tries to pull his head away. He feels a slight pressure on his shoulder. A gentle hand, not cruel or pinching. Comforting almost.
“You know why.”
Chapter Two
~
And he does know. Why he is strapped into a bed, inside a curtain, inside a covered doorway. He knows why they are here to take him away and what that means for him. But is he ready?
Hands remove the straps on his legs and wrists, and he sighs. Truly relaxing for the first time in days, tension flows out of him. For a moment, he forgets why these people are here, thankful that he can feel blood flowing back into his wrists. Struggling to sit up slightly, he tries to rub his ankles but hands grab his, twisting them behind his back painfully.
He cries out in pain as his hands are quickly bound together again. He’s rolled to the side of the bed and panic rises in his chest. Surely he will fall off and onto his face, but at the last second they hold him up. Someone pulls his legs around, placing them on the ground and slipping on a pair of boots for the man. They manipulate him like an invalid, getting him ready for the march.
The dead man tries to lift his head up to look at the tall man but his hood has slipped and his vision is blocked. The now sweaty leather slides across his face as they adjust the straps and straighten it out.
“Better?” The hollow voice of the tattooed man asks.
“Yes, thank you,” the dead man replies quietly. Wondering to himself why he remains polite to his killers.
The bug-eyed twins hold open the gap in the curtain. The woman walks through first, the bones hanging from the chin of her mask rattle and clink like grotesque wind chimes. The tall man guides the dead man through. His hand firm against the man’s back. Still not forceful. But, not gentle either. Though his wrists are still uncomfortable, the man enjoys the feeling of putting one foot in front of the other. His first few steps are stumbling and unsure, like a toddler or a newborn fawn.
Upon leaving the room, they head down the hall. Passing other doors with plastic over them. Another dozen rooms, but all with the openings unzipped. The man is an isolated incident. At least for now.
In the middle of the hallway, two rooms have been combined. The walls and studs removed to create a workspace. A man and woman sit behind a large desk, watching the procession with expressionless faces. They both wear simple white masks, with broad cheekbones and a slight smile carved into the mouths. The masks are a permanent part of the uniform. The nurses here always have a smile for their patients, no matter the cruelty of their work. The male nurse watches with his slight smile, beads of sweat, like tears, run under the mask and down his neck.
The dead man thinks he should say something to them but isn’t sure what. Do you thank someone for tying you to a bed? For ignoring your pains and fears. For doing nothing but giving you an I.V. every day for nourishment? Ignoring your pleas for information. Do you thank them for performing the blood test that sentenced you to death?
To the end of the hall now and another door with another clear cover. They pass through, and the five people crowd in another smaller room. This room is covered from floor to ceiling with the thick plastic. Sprinkler heads poke through the ceiling, but they won’t be wasted on this man. He can no longer be cleansed. One of the bug-eyed twins zips up after them, and for a few seconds, no one moves. Now is when things must go perfectly. The man with the flame tattoos speaks.
“Custom dictates we walk you out of the city. You understand this?”
The dead man nods quickly, his breath still rapid and short. He is focused only the opening in front of him. Wanting out of this space, back into the open air of the city.
“You can protest your sentence. You can attempt to run from us. You can try to speak with citizens, you can spit at them, you can try and bite us. Or, you can go out with dignity. You can walk where we guide you and do as we say. Doing anything but the latter will result in you being dragged through the street.”
“Choose.”
The man gulps deeply, nearly choking. He begins to cough. The noise begins somewhere deep in his chest and rattles his lungs as it explodes out his mouth. Three of the escorts immediately step back. Recoiling. Only the tall man doesn’t flinch, merely observing the condemned man. The dead man regains control after just a few dry coughs. He clears his throat.
“I . . . I will go with dignity. As long as my condition allows.”
“Very good.”
The man with the flames nods to the woman, and she opens the last barrier.
Chapter Three
~
The dead man imagines the air is different on the other side of the plastic curtain. Imagines it is cleaner, crisper. Though, in truth, the air still tastes of the fresh leather as it filters through his hood.
Ahead is a square of light. It is the first natural light the man has seen in three days and even from here, it is bright. The floor slopes down toward the open doorway. A steady decline into daylight. And onto death.
They emerge into a wide alley. Across from them, the soot covered brick of a three-story factory blocks the direct sunlight. Instead, it is filtered through a constant stream of black smoke rising from six large stacks that tower above the roof. The southwestern district of town is full of these black spirits, winding their way into the sky.
Mechanical noises filter down from open windows of the building looming above. Metal clanging on metal. Gears squeaking and grinding, calling for grease. The thick clouds of smoke are hallowed in light, and the dead man wonders why he never thought it beautiful before. Man-made dark clouds, floating off to join their natural brothers in the sky. Will they merge with each other or does the dark always consume the light?
Glancing up toward the windows of the building, the dead man sees a person silhouetted on the third floor. They seem frozen. A shadow imprinted on the glass, unmoving as it observes the exit of the group. The dead man glances away for a moment, flinching from the light that burns his eyes as the smoke thins for a moment. When he glances back up, the figure in the window is gone.
The great wall of the city looms ahead at the end of the alley. Twenty feet high, the shadows are short and tight against the wall as the sun nears its apex. Reaching the end of the alley, the group turns left, down a two lane street that runs the length of the wall. There are no buildings on the side closest to the wall, only a hundred yards of dead grass between the street and the concrete edge of the city.
On the wider road, the four masked executioners assume practiced positions. The woman walks ten feet in front of the dead man, keeping a steady pace, ponytail bobbing from where it pokes out from between straps of her mask. The two twins assume matching positions, ten feet on either side, and slightly behind the man. Sunlight glares off one of the bug eyes, and the dead man turns his head away. There, on his left, walks the tall man. Only a foot away, he is prepared to intercept any movement the dead man makes that isn’t part of the plan.
Fifty feet ahead, a freight wagon pulls off to the side of the road. Two large horses kick and neigh at the sudden interruption to their routine. The young driver, balding ahead of his time, brings a hand to his mouth. Additional protection he thinks. His eyes are wide, gaping at the procession over the top of his mask. It’s more of a mouthpiece. Covering only his nose and mouth, strapping over his ears. His eyes are the
only part of him that moves. They never leave the group as they move past him.
At the first intersection, a crowd of people have gathered in the alley leading to a metal foundry. They stay back from the street and stare. The crowd is silent. The only sound is the scraping of boots on the gravel as people jostle for position. Dozens of masked workers stand shoulder to shoulder, exposed skin blackened with soot and grease, taking a solemn break from their morning labors.
The pattern is repeated down the next half dozen streets. The garment workers stand thick and silent in their masks as the dead man passes. The meat processors wipe their hands on bloody aprons, but otherwise are unmoving as the procession continues. The grain grinders, the munition makers, and the chemical processors all have heard they were coming. The side streets are jammed with them.
For nearly two miles they walk and entertain the crowds. Ahead is the city’s main avenue, but the last alleyway holds special significance for the dead man. As they reach it, he turns his head to the small crowd of people. Only a dozen here. His co-workers at the small pharmaceutical plant where they manufacture the vaccine that has failed the dead man.
He can’t appreciate the irony right now. Was it a batch he ran himself that didn’t mix properly? Why was he the only one to get sick? Is it still dumb luck if you’re the one responsible for the thing that kills you?
In the front of the crowd of his co-workers, Kristine is standing. Mask on, the whiteness of it contrasting with her dark skin. Her hands are over her mouth, in shock at the sight of him. What did she expect? Does he look that hideous? Wearing thick boots that are not his own. Covered in a full body, sweat soaked gown that hangs loosely over his thinned frame. His face covered in a leather hood.
She gives him a little wave. He assumes it is meant as a goodbye, maybe even an I love you. It feels like a wave you might give someone you know from across a crowded market. There isn’t a wave for what she really means. Sorry you’re going to die, but I’m glad it isn’t me. I’m glad they caught it in time, so you didn’t get me sick. He tries to wave back, but his hands are still tied behind him.