by Daryl Banner
I’m reminded suddenly of a much larger spread of rainbow on the horizon that Ben might find as fascinating, except that particular fire never dies.
John’s heading near that fire. It was in the north.
Surely the Chief would’ve realized that. He’s aware of it, after all. What if it’s After’s Hold that’s burning? Hasn’t he considered these things? Ugh … just like that stupid fire, my own worries won’t die either.
I shut my thoughts up with some conjectures: “Do you think, maybe, something was done to you at the Necropolis? Something you don’t remember? Or, or maybe there’s, like, a possibility that …”
“I don’t know. I really just … I don’t know. They took my legs. They …” He sucks his lips up in thought, his eyes diving into the rainbow candlelight, distressed. “So much happened. I don’t know.”
“Listen. Calm down.” I reach for his hand. He pulls it away, shuddering. “Ben … Whatever it is, whatever it was, it can be undone. It has to be. If there’s anything I’ve learned, nothing in this world is permanent.” I carefully consider some other options. “Maybe Marigold can do something. She could … I don’t know. Open you up, maybe. Look at you from the inside, perhaps? See if there’s something that maybe shouldn’t be in there. It’s her expertise, after all, and she already knows, so—”
“Last resort.” He shudders. “I think I’ve been plenty cut up enough, after our time spent at the Necr—N-N-Necrop—Nec—” He clenches shut his eyes. He can’t even say the word.
I’m about to put a hand on his back, then realize I’m wearing John’s steel ring, so I pull it off first. Surely he doesn’t notice. “Last resort, then.”
“Will I still get my Waking Dream?” he asks, quietly, uneasily. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. To know what my life was. I heard the Deathless n-n-never get their Dream.”
I’ve no idea whether or not that’s true. But I feel like what he needs isn’t truth; he needs to be comforted.
“Of course you’ll get your Dream,” I tell him, pulling him in for a little hug.
I sometimes feel like Benjamin is the younger brother I never had, even if he’s been around as an Undead far longer than I. This little moment together, I console him the way I would my family. And in this new world, we are family. He and I. Jasmine. Helena … all of us.
One big dead family.
We watch the candlelight until it’s halfway gone, and I take that to mean half our worries ought to have burned away with it. But that’s far from true; my worries have all but tripled in the twisting flame. The more it burns, in fact, the more it reminds me of the rainbow in the sky, and how I just let John and my friends tumble toward it unknowingly.
I should’ve said something. The Burning Unknown … Emotions grapple within me like a storm and I can’t ignore them, not anymore. I can’t just sit back and wait. I’m so tired of waiting.
The Chief is expecting me at the Town Hall. I’m sure he can cope with a little disappointment.
“Do you want to get outta town, Ben?”
He stares at me, perplexed. “Huh?”
“I think … a little adventure would do us some good. You can’t say no to a little adventure, can you?”
Suddenly he looks eager. “When do we leave?”
“Now.”
In a fit of excitement, he gathers several items into a backpack, dons a shirt that hangs big as a curtain on his gangly frame, whips on a vest and some dirty jeans, then ties a so-called “lucky red bandana” across his brow. I tell him he looks ready to join a karate class, and he blinks at me and asks, “What’s karate?” before gently putting out the candle with a pinch of his fingers.
The little rainbow is gone. The big rainbow awaits.
We leave his house quietly. We’re also leaving behind his fears and mine, and no one can know. We’re deserting the memory of what transpired last night, of birthdays and cake and steel-forged cutlery.
To assure that no one knows of our departure, we sneak out the demolished quarter. There’s no city walls here, and the homes that were burned down long ago during the time of Mad Malory still remain like graves. Even the Undead won’t go near it, claiming it’s haunted.
I guess it sorta is.
As we trace the outer perimeter of Trenton, heading north, the only thing ahead of us is an Eternal Flame we cannot see from the ground … the Burning Unknown, the whatever-the-hell-that-fire-in-the-distance is. It’s a thing I only feel slightly guilty for not mentioning to Ben. There’s also a new Undead city that awaits us. And Helena, and Jasmine, and a Human called Gunner who tried to kill me once. And John.
“This is definitely what I needed,” murmurs Ben, his mouth twisted by this permanent smile that won’t leave him alone. “Where are we headed, exactly?”
I hear a snap behind us, a crack of branches. I glance behind, lifting a brow suspiciously, but find nothing there. “You hear that?”
Ben twists around, squints, shakes his head no.
It’s impossible to hide out here. With the lack of forest life, even the batting of eyelashes carry. “Alright,” I say finally, making sure I’m good and loud … and heard. “Nothing it is, then. Nothing at all. Let’s keep on.”
Two can play.
And in a matter of minutes, Trenton becomes just another thing in the horizon behind us. The Dead Wood and ruined terrain lies ahead. We both needed this. Yes, the Chief will be mad at me, but really, when have I ever been known to do what I’m told?
Ben gives me a smile. I wink back at him, and pretend not to notice the little Human following us.
C H A P T E R – S I X
A L L I A N C E
The old campsite of the Humans is eerie and silent. The tents were taken down and brought to Trenton in case the fabric was needed. The pots, the kettles, the weapons and even the clotheslines were taken too. All that remains is a ring of stones where their daily cooking fires blazed.
“Hungry?” asks Ben, poking a stick at the dirt. I realize there’s a plate and fork half-buried by ash and dead leaves.
“I’m surprised you can make a joke about it so soon.”
“Maybe I was a master of comedy when I was alive.” Ben dances around the circle of rocks, giggles loudly. “So should we stay here a while? Bake a cake?”
Having reached the old Human camp, I’m feeling a great sense of relief, because it means After’s Hold isn’t much farther on.
“We should keep going.” I wince at him. “Sorry, Ben, but I deceived you. We’re actually following John and Hel and Jazz—and some Living named Gunner. They’re heading to a city in the north called After’s Hold.”
“Oh, hmm.” Ben nods, sits down and continues to poke the soil with his gnarled twig. “I guess we must be catching up to them quick. Since there’s Humans among them, they must be taking resting breaks, unlike us who travel tirelessly and without pause.”
“Yes, well …” I peer halfway behind me. “Our little vacation here might soon be crashed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t go on,” I admit, “if the little Human hiding behind that tree doesn’t go back home where it’s safe.”
Benjamin stares quizzically at me. I turn around, watching a tree where I know for a fact the little one is hiding. I wait ever so patiently. I’d wait for an hour if I had one to spare.
“I know you’re there,” I call out.
After a bit, she meekly replies: “I’m not going back.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I am not.”
“Your mom and dad are probably asking the Chief right now for my head.” I keep my voice even. “They hate me enough, Megan. I’m a terrible influence, blah, blah. I’m the reason you survived and, to them, I’ll be the reason you die too, no matter if I’m involved or not. And I’m not going to have you going where we’re going, as I can’t in any way guarantee your safety. Go home.”
Finally, she shows herself, stepping out from behind the tree. “You said Gunner is wit
h them?”
I lift a brow. “Yes, that’s what I said.”
“He’s a bad person.”
This is news I do not want to hear. “What do you mean?” I come up to Megan, kneeling down in front of her, alarmed. “Tell me, please.”
“Gunner’s bad.” I can see it in her eyes, her fear of him. “He kept us safe. But he isn’t right in the head. I caught him stealing from the Chief’s tent a long time ago. He doesn’t know I know. I saw him steal twice. Leonard told the Chief once that he didn’t trust Gunner, and then the next morning, Gunner shot Leonard in the leg. He told the Chief he only mistook Leonard for a Crypter, but I know he was lying. The next time the Crypters attacked, the real Crypters, Leonard couldn’t run fast enough, and he was eaten. It’s all Gunner’s fault. He’s a bad person.”
“Okay.” I take Megan in for a hug, peering at Ben over her shoulder, concern bleeding from my eyes. I pat Megan consolingly. “Thanks for telling me, Megan. We’ll make sure no harm comes to them. Don’t you worry.”
“I’m still coming with you.”
“No, Megan. You can’t.” I keep hugging her, patting her head gently. “Please, Megan. Especially if Gunner is the kind of person you say he is, I can’t risk you around him. Please, Megan, please, please, please go home.”
“But it’s almost dark. I can’t.”
I look up into the sky. I’m so, so frustrated that I can’t tell if she’s lying or not. What a terribly inconvenient trait of the Undead.
“Megan … It’s not almost dark. It was hardly morning when Ben and I left, and I know for a fact that eight hours have not gone by since—”
“I don’t WANT to go back!” she shouts, enraged. “I CAN’T go back to that STUPID town. I’m sick of school and lessons and gardening … It’s all stupid and I don’t need it. I want to HELP, Winter! Please, please, PLEASE!”
I gape over her shoulder at Benjamin. What am I supposed to do?? He only watches with lifted, alarmed eyebrows, like a permanent shrug. A lot of help he is.
“Alright,” I finally say. I’m not gonna like this. “But … if you come along, you have to make me a promise.”
She pulls away, her face lighting up. I see the tears in her eyes. “Anything! I promise! I already promise!”
“The promise is … you have to stay hidden. And if anything goes wrong, anything at all, and we’re in danger, you have to run away. You must. Fast as you can, and tell the Chief back in Trenton. Can you do that, Megan?”
“Yes,” she promises.
And just like that, we have ourselves a deal.
“Does that mean we need to rest here?” asks Ben.
Megan pats the pockets of her little pants. “I came with snacks. Nuts I’ve been saving up under my bed. If I get tired, you or Winter could carry me.”
“Better Winter,” Ben says quickly, his eyes shifting.
I sigh. As if Ben could possibly think to sink teeth into darling Megan. “Yes, alright, okay. We’ll move on, then.” I give my little Human a wink. She beams.
Maybe I’m worried for nothing. Maybe After’s Hold will prove as helpful as we need it to be, and my worries with Gunner will simply be fruits of another dead tree.
We leave the camp and press on into the misty wood, which gives away to barren plains and vast spreads of nothing. In about an hour’s time, however, the harsh terrain gives to chunks of concrete and gravel—which I assume used to be part of a street. The sight of them excites me, because I haven’t yet seen remnants of the more modern world yet. Maybe these masses of cement are leftovers of a highway. Megan starts to play the curiosity game, of course, so I soon find myself explaining to her what cars are. Benjamin, being an Undead who hasn’t recalled the Old World yet, jumps in with his own questions, and suddenly I’m a guru of all things modern-world. I describe it all to them: trains, trucks, airplanes …
The pair of them think I’m making it all up, especially the part about machines that could take to the sky and quickly transport tons of people from one end of the planet to the other, until I explain that I’d ridden several. I remember not fondly the act of moving from one end of the country to the other. From a beachfront condo to the snowy hell in the north with bad internet.
The snowy hell in which I was asked to prom. The snowy hell in which my life would eventually end …
After all the reminiscing and explaining, I’m struck for a solid moment by how many things the world’s lost.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I realize I’d come to a stop, overwhelmed. “Yes,” I assure her, but I’m not certain at all if I’m okay. I’m having a rush of … something. An emotion—many of them—or maybe it’s a panic attack, I can’t tell. It’s the same feeling I had when my Waking Dream found me. I’m recalling conversations with my mom. A last moment with my dad in the hospital room. Some horrible thing I said to a teacher once, right in front of the whole class. I felt so smart and proud until she sent me to the principal. I remember a car ride down a very fast highway, and I couldn’t stop insulting the driver, telling him how stupid he looked in the new uniform my parents provided him. I’d known the driver since I was five.
I was a horrible person when I was alive. Claire was a horrible, horrible person.
“Winter?”
It’s Ben now who puts a hand on my shoulder, stirring me from the wretched thoughts that just held me hostage. I fight an urge to smack his hand away.
“I’m fine. Sorry.” I smile, pushing down the rage and the horror and the guilt and the fury that just tried to volcano out of me. “Got lost in a thought, nothing, it’s okay. We’re almost there, I think.”
In half an hour, I’m carrying Megan on my back and something is peeking at us in the distance. What I take to be the city of After’s Hold looks like a strange, pointy mountain. The buildings are tall, some of them jagged, some dull and blunt. There is a lot of dust in the air, quite different from the mist that settles around Trenton. This dust seems the product of factories, almost smoke-like. Its source doesn’t seem to be a fire, strangely. I’m somewhat relieved and twice as perplexed that there appears to be no evidence here of that enormous flame I saw back at Trenton, the one that twisted the distant sky. I suppose it isn’t here … whatever it is … but then where is it?
“We’re here?” Megan clings tighter to my neck.
Ben peers at me too, his eyes reflecting Megan’s same question. “I suppose so,” I answer, “though we still have quite a ways to walk.”
The closer we get to the city, the lighter I feel. Already I’m feeling elated. It’s hardly been a day and I already can’t wait to see John. What seems like ages and miles of walking later—I can’t be sure—it still feels like we have an eternity to walk. I wonder if After’s Hold is just some big dumb mirage and what we’re actually crossing is a huge ginormous desert of despair. Someone could tell me that right now and I’d believe them without question.
Suddenly there’s two people approaching us in the distance. We come to a cautious stop. Is this the … After’s Hold Welcoming Committee?
Megan slips off of me, tired of being held, I suppose. Benjamin steps next to me, his arm against mine, and he whispers, “They’re good people, right? Like you and I?”
Would a good person abandon her wheelchair-bound mother to chase into the night with a boy named Gill? Would a good person scoff at her dad’s final words to her as he lays bedridden in a hospital, alone?
Instead, I say, “Yes, Benjamin. We’re good people.”
He frowns at me. “I said they. Are they good people.”
“Yes,” I agree. “Deep down, we’re all good people. We all tried our best.” I watch them approaching, listen to the soft tread of shoe soles against concrete.
“Are … you okay?” Ben whispers.
The two individuals are close enough to be seen. Two women who look half like aliens. One has skin that seems eerily the color of a soft purple light refracted through a soap bubble. I literally cannot describe it any ot
her way. Her eyes even appear soapy, like two transparent bubbles, and her smile is broad and full of lip. She wears a long, tight-fitting gown that’s all white but for a muddy rim at the bottom near her feet. The other woman’s skin is shiny and brown, like polished oak, and the whites of her eyes flash with kindness—I’ll call it kindness—and her hands are long and she also wears a gown, though hers is blue and spotted with tiny glass shards.
“Why, hello!” the soap bubble exclaims, flashing her teeth. “Are you two also fellow visitors from Tonton?”
“I …” I wrinkle my brow at Ben for a second before answering, “Yes, yes we are. Trenton,” I politely correct her, eerily reminding myself of my little Human’s dad, Ken. “The name is Trenton.”
“Trenton. Nice, very nice. My name is Oureoliaua,” she says, like I’ll ever remember how the hell to say that. “This is my sisterling, Beatautrilua. You both are so very welcome here in After’s Hold. The others arrived just twelve minutes ago.”
Twelve, she says? Not thirteen, not eleven? Twelve exactly? “Thank you. I’m very anxious to reunite with my friends.” I tell this to … Oreo. Let’s just call her Oreo. “Would you mind leading us to them?”
“And your names?” she asks, eyes wide and curious.
Oh, yeah, rude of me. “Sorry. I’m Winter. This is my friend Benjamin, and …”
I turn, only to find my little Human is not there. I let my eyes wander, alarmed … to the distance, to the one or two dead trees, to the giant slabs of concrete that sprinkle the land from here to infinity.
Where did she go? Has she already deemed these two women “danger” and fled home?
“And, uh …” I realize my mouth’s hanging open. I bring my attention back to the ladies who still curiously and patiently await the end of my sentence. “And … we are good people,” I finish uncertainly.