I felt guilty running effortlessly between them, not sharing their burden of pain and sickness and physical effort. I hadn’t felt the bite of the insects, had not been poisoned, and I could run for days and not feel the slightest fatigue or discomfort. As always, the worst of the guilt came from that secret sense of relief that the lucky ones, the survivors, always feel, whether they want to or not.
The Heart beat once more and the forest groaned. The small crack and snap of breaking twigs around us turned into the raucous crashing of heavy bodies smashing through the thickening underbrush.
Ahead of us, a massive boar burst from between two trees. Its veins stood out grotesquely under its sparse covering of bristles and bloody spray flew from its nose and mouth as it huffed, adding bright red gore to its exposed tusks. Whatever spirit or force was driving it, there was clearly no concern about the damage it was doing to its host.
It lowered its head and charged, leaves and black soil churning under its flying hooves, two hundred pounds of enraged beast bearing down on us.
I sped up, determined to meet it before it reached Anne or Leon, and braced for the impact. It never came.
Anne’s P250 barked once and the boar went boneless in mid-stride, crashing to a stop in front of me, one eye a bloody ruin.
We ran around the dead boar, smaller now in death. One of its flanks was deeply slashed, the blood still wet and sticky. Had it really been after us or had something in the woods driven it out into our path?
The underbrush became sparser as we ran, until only a thick carpet of dead leaves remained. At the same time, the trees became taller, their trunks thicker, and the canopy overhead more uniform.
It began to feel less like we were running through a forest and more like we were in an unimaginably large vaulted chamber with living trees as columns to hold up the leafy ceiling overhead.
The air carried a hint of ozone, as if a thunderstorm loomed just out of sight, making the already otherworldly character of the forest more pronounced.
The leaves on the ground were disturbed here, their wet undersides exposed in clumps. I gestured for the others to stop as I approached an irregular shape ahead of us. As Leon and Anne stood gasping for air, I squatted down next to it and picked it up.
It was a child’s tennis shoe, pink canvas and white rubber. And ten feet further on was something else.
A camouflage baseball cap.
57
We found other personal effects as we pressed on, but I couldn’t shake the image of the man in the camo hat at the shelter, his daughter under one arm, her face pressed tightly into his jacket. I tried not to think about how that tiny pink shoe had come to be out here in the middle of this eldritch, sinister place or what might have happened to the other people that had been with them. The other families. The other children. Aunt Emily. Chuck.
“Guys? We’re losing the light,” said Anne.
I looked up. The glowing fog above us was breaking apart. Tiny blue and gold sparks streaked away from it like erratic comets, zipping off between the trees and out of sight. In a matter of seconds the wisps had departed, leaving us to be swallowed up by the forest once more.
My eyes needed no time to adjust to the oppressive dark. Nothing waited in the surrounding woods, at least that I could see, and even the underbrush beyond my sight was silent now, empty of the creatures that had paced us earlier.
“Looks like this is as far as everything else in this forest is willing to go.”
Anne drew her pistol and flicked off the safety. “Good.”
“No, it’s probably not. Let’s move, there’s light up ahead.”
Leon grunted. “I’ll have to take your word on that.”
I gave them each an arm to hold onto and started walking. The papery shuffle of our feet on the carpet of decaying leaves and the faint rustling of the branches overhead was loud in my ears. I tried not to focus on it as we pressed on through the dark. It sounded like whispering.
I don’t know how long we walked like that, waiting for something to drop onto us, or come charging out at us from between the trees. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, but they were the kind of minutes that lingered, second by grudging second, etching themselves into your memory. The kind that you got to relive in future nights, alone and unable to sleep, for the rest of your life.
It ended when we reached a hole in the forest, each of us taking an involuntary breath of relief.
In ring at least a hundred yards across, there were no trees. Moonlight like liquid silver poured through the gap in the canopy, falling from the unnaturally large moon that hung directly over the clearing. It pooled on the raw, barren earth underneath and glistened wetly on everything it touched.
A twenty-foot-high mockery of an oak tree stood in the center of the clearing, created from the bones of Halfway’s dead. Each bone in the grotesque sculpture was linked to the next, obscene runes shimmering as if their carved lines were filled with water that was rippling in the moonlight.
The trunk contained a hollow space just under the fork of the first branches, maybe six feet off the ground. It was deep and arched, like a shrine, and contained a basket made of tiny, delicate bones. Standing upright inside the basket was the Heart.
It still appeared to me like a football-sized brazil nut, only fibrous and sticky on the outside. Pale white roots grew out of a crack in the shell at the bottom and wound through the bones of the corpse tree to disappear into the earth.
In front of the tree knelt Prime: hands raised over his head in supplication, weight on his knees, head bowed. He rocked back and forth ever so slightly, as if chanting.
He was covered in long, sharp thorns like armor and even from here I could tell that he was larger than when I had last seen him at the Halloween bonfire. Much larger.
A crown of tiny bones circled his brow. These bones had not been picked clean by the Flensing Tree and were still clotted with blood and meat. Prime must have collected them himself.
Filling the rest of the clearing were the townspeople that we had saved and left behind in the hospital’s storm shelter. Despite everything we had done, they were here.
They stood with their eyes closed, faces turned up to the strange moon, seeming to sleep standing up. Dozens of wooden men held their enthralled victims in place, their clawed hands sunk into shoulders and waists, staring out with stiff wooden faces that were all too familiar.
The shoes of the townspeople had been taken, and the roots of the Heart had grown up out of the black soil and over their feet like rust-colored netting.
Chuck stood in the front, blood running out of his hairline, his shirt torn, and his knuckles skinned. I felt a surge of pride at seeing him standing there with the signs of his resistance displayed on his body like a banner.
I picked out others: Aunt Emily behind him and, on the other side of the clearing, the man who used to wear a camo hat. His daughter stood next to him, neither one knowing that the other was only a few feet away. I didn’t see his wife.
The Heart pulsed in its shrine and all of the townspeople sagged. The wooden men holding them were forced to shift their grips to bear the weight. The roots flexed and the Heart gave off a dull red light from its center, becoming almost translucent the way a hot coal will do when you blow on it. An acrid smell like burning hair filled the clearing and smoke drifted out of the bone tree.
In the moment that the Heart beat, while the townspeople suffered and the forest writhed, Prime himself shuddered and clutched at the ground for balance. At the same time, Leon clutched at his right thigh, where a slender wooden tendril tipped with a single green leaf was poking through his jeans.
I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could speak I was struck from behind. The force of the blow catapulted me forward and I felt the leather straps of Hunger’s holster break across my thigh as it was ripped from me.
I sailed headfirst into the clearing and slammed into the ground at Prime’s feet.
58
/>
I landed hard, my hands digging furrows into the packed soil. Hair-thin white roots grew up around my fingers with a stinging, prickly sensation, but they quickly turned blotchy gray and limp as they came into contact with my skin. As Prime learned the night he was born, there is no sustenance to be had from my body.
Behind me, Anne and Leon were being frog-marched into the clearing by hulking wooden men of a kind I hadn’t seen before. Their damp, musty bodies were shaggy with roots and vines, much less defined than the other ones that we had seen. Their heads were crude lumps whose rudimentary features were lost in the deep folds of the warped wood that made up their faces.
Anne’s captor held her gun hand high over her head with one fist wrapped around her wrist. Its other arm was curled around her waist, pinning her against its body. She snapped her heels back into its knees and groin as it hauled her out of the trees and into the light. The monster plodded on without noticing.
The other creature carried Leon in a bear hug, both arms trapping his back against its chest. Leon had no better luck than Anne as he tore fistfuls of moss from the thing’s arms.
A third creature shambled into the clearing behind them, Hunger clenched in one massive fist, broken leather straps swinging back and forth in time with its ponderous footfalls.
All I could see as I leapt to my feet was Hunger in someone else’s possession. A hot, acidic emotion that I could barely recognize squeezed the breath out of me. I’ve never been a jealous man, even with Maggie, but that was the only frame of reference I could find for the surge of vengeful hate that consumed me.
Nobody touched Hunger but me. And for goddamn sure nothing was going keep us apart. That moment of separation kept playing in my mind, needling at me. The heavy slap against my leg and the pop of the parting leather straps. Taking it from me.
Ignoring my friends, my friends who were being held captive right in front of me, I charged, my eyes locked on what was mine. I only managed two steps before I was smashed to the ground by a hand the size of a manhole cover. Thorns raked my back open in long ragged lines.
Prime stepped over me and took possession of Hunger.
I pushed off the ground and stood up, my injuries forgotten. “Give it to me.”
*No.*
Prime’s voice, so like Leon’s, rang in my head. From the reaction of the others I could tell they heard it, too.
“It’s mine. Give it to me. Now.”
*Or what? You’ll hurt me?*
Prime gestured at the creature holding Anne. It shifted its grip on her arm and lowered her gun until it was pointed directly at Prime. Then it hooked the sharp tip of one stick-like digit through the trigger guard and squeezed.
The shot cracked loudly in the still air and lingered as it echoed back out of the forest around us. Bark and splinters popped off of Prime’s stomach, revealing pale white wood underneath.
Leon screamed and hunched over in the grip of the creature carrying him. Blood dripped onto the tops of his boots and onto the thirsty ground. Tiny knots of darkening roots bloomed where each drop fell.
As before, the splintered divot on Prime repaired itself in moments, and as it did so, Leon’s breath became less labored.
He skinned his lips back in a mirthless grin at Prime. “You think that matters? If you’re me, then you already know that I won’t mind dying to put you under. None of us would.”
Prime gave him back the same smile, but with a mouth full of black thorns. *Self-sacrifice is easy. Everyone wants to be a martyr. But can you sacrifice someone else? That’s different, isn’t it? Can your friends murder you to save themselves?*
He turned away from us and knelt in front of the bone tree, Hunger still clenched in one fist. *You already know the answer. Now be still.*
He was wrong, of course. Anyone who has lived long enough will tell you that nothing worthwhile is ever accomplished without sacrifice and anyone who has been to war knows that sacrificing others is part of the price. But sometimes you get to choose how you pay.
I didn’t have to kill Prime. I only needed to take the Heart away from him before he could finish the ritual. I could accept whatever happened after that.
I dug my fingers and toes into the ground and shot forward in a blur towards the bone tree. I had to pass close by Prime to reach it, just to the left of where he knelt, facing away from me. I don’t know how fast I was moving, but I can guarantee that no human had ever hit that kind of speed in a sprint before.
But Prime wasn’t human, either. Without looking back, he swung one trunk-like arm out as I passed, catching me in the chest. I may as well have been hit by a car. I felt the ribs on my right side collapse and then I was on the ground. I didn’t remember landing.
I’m hard to put down and I’ll be the first to admit that I take that for granted these days. And not just harder to injure than I should be, but faster to heal. Shoot me, cut me, tear my flesh, and I come right back, good as new. That’s what always happens, so that’s what I expected.
But this time, laying there on my back, everything felt wrong. I hurt like a sonofabitch, make no mistake, but it was all on the surface. I didn’t have that radiating, pulsing ache in my gut that makes you want to vomit or that bone-deep bruising throb that you get from a full body tackle. All of the pain floated on top, bright and hot, like naked skin being scraped across concrete.
Underneath was something worse than pain. The hunger that I had held down every second of every day and placated with secret binges of cold beans and the cast off garbage of strangers rose up and shook me in its teeth. It turned my bones to fire and stole my breath.
I pulled myself laboriously to my knees, fighting every second to keep my need from eating my control. My mind.
My chest and stomach were a mess. Prime’s thorns had torn me up pretty good and I could tell by running my hands over my side that I was right about the ribs.
The pain of my body should have begun to fade by now, but it remained bright and insistent. I wasn’t healing.
Getting body and will together in order to get to my feet took time I didn’t have and willpower that I couldn’t spare. But I did it. I walked with a half-limp, trying to favor my right side, directly towards Prime’s back. If I couldn’t go around, I’d go over.
The movement caught Prime’s attention. He turned around and I leapt. It was a shitty leap, but good enough to pass over him and land next to the bone tree. The shock of the landing made me cry out, but didn’t stop me from reaching for the Heart. My fingertips burned as they touched the white-hot surface, but before I could get a grip on it, Prime wrapped one hand around my head and the other one around my arm.
He picked me off of the ground and threw me back the way I had come. The landing left me gasping in agony, but I pulled myself slowly to my feet anyway, my eyes never leaving Prime’s.
He strode over to me and slammed one massive fist into my gut. I went down again. *Do you even know why you’re here? Did the fox appeal to your vanity and tell you that you would be the one to save the world?
I got back to my feet. My tongue was thick in my mouth, forcing me to push the words out. “Fuck ... the world. I’m here for my friends. And that little girl, right there. That’s enough for me.”
*That girl? The one that the fox delivered to me after sending you away from the shelter?*
“That’s not true. The fox gave us a way to find you. To stop you.”
*If you were meant to stop me, then why did the fox give you the thorn that would create me?*
He swung at my face. I got an arm up in time, but all that meant was that his fist drove it into the side of my head. I hit the ground again, this time face first. The roots stung my cheek as they tried and failed to feed on me once again.
*The fox is a liar and a betrayer. You aren’t here to save the world. You’re here to save the fox.*
I probably shouldn’t have, but I got up anyway. It’s not in me to stay down. Never has been. “I don’t care. These people will live.”
*No, these people will die. Just as the fox intends. The question is, who will they die in service of? Me, or the fox?*
I didn’t get an arm up this time. I didn’t even see it coming. Prime’s fist cracked against my skull, the thorns slicing deep into my face. I landed on my back.
“Stop it!” shouted Anne.
I had to spit the blood out of my mouth before I could speak. “Just a scratch.” I rolled onto my hands and knees.
*I don’t know if you can die, but clearly you can be broken. Too bad for the fox. It helped me find the Heart and finish the Womb of Bone that cradles it. But if it thought that you would destroy me and let it take my place on the tree? That was one gamble too many. The next time the Heart beats, I’ll be one with the tree and your kind will be culled. Magic will rise again and the thousand houses will return, as will the old gods. And I will ascend to their ranks.”
I thought about the isolation and the desperate hunger that clawed at my insides like fire. ”Godhood is overrated. What about the people you cull? How do they die?”
He spread his arms wide. *The forest will eat them. All of them.*
I was still on my knees when I ran out of time. The Heart beat, throbbing in sync with the shivering trees. Sighing groans came from Prime’s victims, slipping from their numb lips. The girl, standing on the black soil, feet covered in greedy roots, sank to her knees and slowly toppled over to lean against the legs of her father. He didn’t know she was there. A drop of blood fell from her nose and spattered on her dirty nightgown.
Flame erupted from the Heart and the outer shell cracked and fell away, exposing a white-hot tangle of tightly packed roots in its center. The roots uncoiled and slithered around and through the bones of the tree, igniting them as well. In seconds the tree was ablaze with spectral fire that gave heat but almost no light, as if the silver flames dancing along the bones were too greedy to let it escape.
Prime kicked me in the gut, lifting me off of the ground. I landed curled in a ball around my broken ribs.
Liar's Harvest (The Emergent Earth) Page 21