Dead Boys

by Gabriel Squailia

  Later, in the leisure of his starvation, he would reflect that in the language of the Old Ones, one was said to “wear” his dreams, “the many masks of sleep.” Thus “wearer” had a double meaning: in order to part the veil between worlds, he wore the crown and dreamed. Likewise, the “carriers” carried not only their supplies, but their little dreamer, too, keeping him safe during his slumber.

  Etienne had no such luxury. When he awoke with the Book in his arms and the torch in his fist, the veil was already closing behind him, granting him only a glimpse of the world between worlds before his eyes were forced shut by the sands of the Moving Desert.

  His body thudded on the sands, and the cloud was everywhere, grating against his skin, shaking and rebounding in his eyes and ears. He found his feet and began to run, falling down, dragging himself up, choking and coughing, barely noticing when the crown tumbled from his head; he was suffocating, and would have died then had he not collided with Shailesh, who was just embarking upon his third scouring.

  Six Seekers bearing a seventh shifted their weight, reassembling above the rising sands. The storm, too, shifted, settling a crackling mantle of dust around the broad shoulders of Shailesh. He reached out and accepted the sand-heavy skull of Etienne, cradling it in his hands. He lay his thumbs on its brow, between the empty sockets of its eyes, and all the company saw his memories projected against the shifting screen of the sands.

  Shailesh was deep in the marrow-grip when the living boy fell into his arms, and his first thought was that the eternals must be right: repeated scouring caused madness, after all. Then the sight of the boy’s blood smeared on his bones sobered him, and with haste Shailesh bore him out of the cloud, into the safety of White City.

  The boy was thin, his body soft and far more fragile than a corpse’s. His skin was very dark, darker than Shailesh’s had been, with a reddish glow that seemed to boast of the blood within. His eyelashes and sighs alarmed the Seekers who crowded around his place of rest, to whom he was at once an angelic and a shameful object; while none denied his beauty, Shailesh, like the others, struggled with his hatred for the boy. He even fantasized about killing him, and Shailesh had never been able to stomach bloodshed.

  “It’s what a woman seeing God would feel,” said Mistress Ai. “In the presence of the original, we experience a violent awareness that we are but imitations. Each breath he takes recalls us to our last. We’d do anything to avoid that memory. We’d even kill, were it not for our vows.”

  They nursed him all the same, though out of wary obligation, not tenderness. His skin was raw and wanted washing, and he badly needed sleep, which they watched with quiet mistrust. When he awoke, he complained of hunger and thirst; they could only satisfy the latter, and though he said the river-water tasted sour, “like rotting vegetables,” it seemed to revive him.

  He had not meant to come without supplies, he said. He needed the crown to return to the living world, he said, but no one who ventured into the storm could find it. He spoke hopefully of his ancestors, but none of the Seekers had heard of his Old Ones.

  “You should speak with the Poet,” said Shailesh, “the eldest among us. If any will know of your ancestors, it is he.”

  “Where is he?” said Etienne.

  “On White Peak, composing.”

  “When will he return?”

  “No one knows.”

  “Well, I can’t afford to wait,” said Etienne. “I’ve got to find the Old Ones before I starve. They’ll know how to get me back.”

  Shailesh accepted the tome but protested the boy’s decision, describing all the ways that a Seeker could travel that were barred to one so breakable. “Your only possible path is through the Plains of War, and I shudder in my soul to think of you there!”

  “I know what the Plains are,” said Etienne. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Very well: but I can take you no farther than the far side of White Gate. Our people have vowed never to set foot in those lands again.”

  “That will be fine,” said the boy, his cracked lips splitting in a grin. “I’ve read about those warriors, and I’m willing to bet that I’m faster than any of them.” Then down they climbed, and off the boy walked, setting like a blood-red sun in the crooked hall that led to the Plains. Shailesh launched himself to the top of White Gate, fretting that he’d sacrificed a greater vow to a lesser one. It was a doubt no amount of scouring could clean from his bones.

  Six Seekers bearing a seventh withstood the storm, feeling the head’s suffering like a prolonged electric shock.

  Jacob felt Etienne’s story rippling through his body—no, he thought, through his skeleton. He couldn’t see himself, not in the midst of this granular onslaught, but the longer he remained in the storm, the more the mass of sand and dust spoke to him. He saw, he felt, in flashes that seemed to belong to the desert. His worn clothes had disintegrated, his boots had been tugged off, and his flesh had been all but stripped away, reduced to a few patches dangling from tangled threads of fishing-wire. As he tore them free, he discovered one last holdout: the pouch was still tied around his wrist, hanging on by a stubborn, gristly strip of leather.

  Wondering at its tenacity, Jacob shivered in his bones as he yanked it free, clasping its rumpled oval in one claw-like hand. He’d promised to keep it close, never to let it out of his sight. Now that it had lasted so unaccountably long, should he try to protect it from the ravages of the storm?

  It would be impossible, unless he left the desert immediately. But an inexplicable tingle rippling through the sands gave him the distinct impression that this had been Ma Kicks’ intention all along.

  With two fingertips, he pried the pouch open. White dust and shards of bone rose jittering into the air. The pulverized finger of Ma Kicks swirled into the cloud, pouring through the Seekers’ open skulls.

  She stood on the riverside with one hand on her belly and one on the handle of a slop-bucket. Lazarus Quay was chock-full of marks, but this boy was so fresh Clarissa caught him trying to breathe when he thought no one was looking. He was hiding something else, too—in the hip pocket of his dusty tunic was some kind of rectangular doodad. It must have been valuable, considering how often his hand drifted there.

  But he couldn’t guard it forever. Sooner or later, he’d have his rigor mortis. She’d just have to be there when it happened, then turn his treasure into time in her account.

  She’d never cared much for the Dead City Welcome—it was a nasty way to bring anyone into this world—but she had her child’s future to consider. The baby wouldn’t stay in her womb forever. She knew that much from the way it was wiggling these days. Her firstborn would want an afterlife of its own, and what did she have to offer but bad luck, mounting debt, and a dead-end job in the skankiest bar in the Tunnels?

  Nothing, unless she took advantage of this immigrant boy’s arrival. She’d be a fool to pass him over, and if she did some other enterprising corpse would snap him up just the same. Why should somebody else, somebody with purely selfish motives, benefit from his naivety? The boy would learn the same lesson one way or another.

  She glanced at the surface of the river, where she’d already scavenged two buckets of past-due produce. Her reflection was still looking all right. There was no mistaking her for a living girl, not with those marks on her throat. And they weren’t the worst of it, not any more. When Clarissa’s life had slammed shut she didn’t look a day over seventeen, but by now her skin had slumped enough to make her look a little matronly, plastic barrettes or no.

  It would have to do. She hiked up her buckets and swung her hips past the spot where her mark was sprawled. As soon as he turned those big, shiny eyes on her, she stumbled, and a bucket full of rotting bounty slopped onto the street between them. She let out her best woe-is-me wail, bending down low.

  The boy wasn’t looking her way, though. His eyes were fixed on the pile of slops, rifling through half-rotten apples, slimy leaves of cabbage, and heels of bread soaked in Lethean muck.
It was only then that she noticed how skinny he was, like he’d starved to death in some shit-heel corner of the Lands Above.

  He must still think he was hungry. She hoped she didn’t have to watch him try and eat—he’d probably bite off his tongue, which was still so moist with river-water that she stopped looking at his face.

  How’d he get so dusty? she wondered. It was like his insides were the only part that had gotten wet.

  “May I help you with that?” he said, voice wavering.

  “You sure you wouldn’t mind?” she said, shoving her revulsion aside. “Packed these buckets too heavy for a girl in my condition. Tell you what, though: you give me a hand, and I’ll stand you a drink when we get down below.”

  He scooped the slops back in, making weird little grunting noises.

  Damn, but the baby was kicking hard today. Wouldn’t be long now.

  With the time she made off this rube, she’d fill up a whole nursery with toys.

  When he’d gotten a handle on the bucket, Clarissa led the boy through the streets, steering him down a wide, dirt-paved ramp teeming with corpses. Then, when the darkness closed around them, the boy pulled the flashlight out of his pocket and clicked it on, pointing its beam at the floor.

  She turned, looking hungrily at it. How the thing was still working after being dunked in the river she’d never understand—was it wrapped in plastic when he’d died?—but she wasn’t about to ask any questions. With that thing in hand, she wouldn’t just buy out her debt, she’d buy her own bar.

  “Honey, your eyes work just fine down here,” she said, hoping he’d save the charge in those precious batteries.

  “It—it comforts me,” he mumbled.

  Dead boy scared of the damn dark, she thought, shaking her head. Lethe sure did deliver the goods.

  “Hush now,” she whispered to her belly, where the baby was going plumb crazy. “What got into you?”

  As they passed through raucous bars and crumbling hallways, Clarissa kept her back to the boy, trusting the wobbling beam of his flashlight to assure her he was keeping up. He lagged behind whenever she went around a corner, and it wasn’t long before she heard the awful sounds of his jaws smacking around a mouthful of slops, his gullet working overtime trying to force that half-rotten food down. How he managed to swallow with his throat gone cold she couldn’t imagine, but immigrants did the strangest things before the mortis came.

  The baby was stomping her guts into disarray, sending an unwelcome vibration through her bones. Her whole body shook as she walked through the darkness.

  Was she really going to rob this poor boy?

  Course she was. She’d hustle first and kick herself later. That’s how things were down here. That’s how they’d been up there.

  One drink. She just had to get him through one drink, and it would all be worth it.

  The bar was even busier than when she’d left it. “Late again,” croaked her boss as she took the bucket from the boy’s hands and carried it with the other behind the bar. “And customers lined up, waiting.” He peered into the buckets. “Is this it?”

  Clarissa watched the boy shining his beam wildly around the faces of the drunkards, who goggled back at him, amazed at his gadget. She motioned him over, away from any of the lowlives eager to claim him for their own. “The boy’s got something more valuable than the slops he spilled. Give it a minute, I’ll pry it loose.”

  Her boss grunted. “You’re better at bullshiting than running for swill.”

  “Do you mind? I owe Slim here a drink.”

  The barman sucked his teeth and turned his back, looking sidelong at the flashlight. Whatever happened, he’d still turn a profit.

  “You’ve had a long day,” Clarissa said, shoving a mug in front of the boy. “Let Ma take the edge off.”

  The boy tucked his nose in and took a sip. Clarissa watched him drink. The whole room was watching as his light flickered, wondering if the batteries would win the race with his mortis.

  It would still be a good haul, even without the batteries, Clarissa told herself, though her spirits had sunk.

  “Shall we have it again then?” came a voice from over the boy’s shoulder.

  “Ad infinitum!” cried another.

  “And a-one, and a-two, and a—”

  Three corpses were standing on a rickety table, assailing Clarissa’s ears with an underworld drinking song. Though tuneless, their rendition had rhythm on its side, and within moments the entire bar was churning to the beat. Clarissa, annoyed by their antics, absently refilled the boy’s mug and was surprised to find him with his head on the bar, giggling helplessly.

  “You all right there, honey?” she said, surprised at the uncommon looseness his body displayed when he lifted his head. “Looks like that drink hit you pretty hard.”

  “You have no idea,” he said, pulling the mug from her hands more quickly than she’d have thought possible, “how that drink hit me.” He shone his light under his face. “I’m aglow with inspiration!” he cried, then tipped the mug into his mouth.

  The effects of this second drink on his body were like nothing she’d seen in the Tunnels, and she wondered if she’d judged him wrong. Could a boy as fresh as this already have gone through his mortis? He seemed to be speeding up when he ought to be slowing down.

  The flashlight was glowing yellow now. She could kiss those batteries goodbye, but at this rate she wasn’t even sure she’d get a crack at his tunic.

  He stumbled into the crowd, where after a while she spotted him teaching the singers a new song. The place was soon stomping and howling along, and she was too busy pouring drinks to keep an eye on him. “Win some, lose some,” she muttered, and then the boy hopped right up on a tabletop, howling at the top of his lungs:

  Ten sacks of meat did hit the street

  And there they fell to fighting

  And what they spilled was red and sweet

  And had the dogs delighting.

  Tra-la! Tra-lay! We’ll all be dead ‘ere day!

  What God with life invested

  Will all too soon be infested

  So scrape it to the bone

  ‘Fore the maggots call it home

  We’ve lived too long together

  Let’s thank Christ we die alone!

  The drunkards were in ecstasy. Half-full mugs of swill soared through the air, bodies lurched in a grotesque parody of dance, puddles were stomped into fountains, and above it all the boy waved his hands in the air like a conductor, weeping with laughter.

  Clarissa stared at his face. He must have splashed swill in his eyes, but it looked for all the world like tears.

  The dogs did drink, the dogs did eat,

  The dogs did swiftly die

  The whole damned planet perished in

  The winking of an eye.

  Tra-la! Tra-lay! We’ve all been dead all day!

  Now all our little lives will fall

  Into death’s wretched protocol

  So drink for all you’re worth

  For the charnel-house of Earth

  But prepares us for the truth

  That death is just another birth!

  The boy was down in the crowd now, and his lyrics rang out in a muddle, trampled under the stomping of feet, the beating of mugs, the slamming of chairs on tables. The crowd pitched and heaved; every now and then a reveler tumbled to the floor, shouting the song from below, oblivious to the blows his sodden body absorbed.

  “They’ll tear the place apart,” said Clarissa.

  “We’ll have to weather the storm,” said her boss, opening up a drawer beneath the bar. A small arsenal was stashed inside. “Take your pick, but I’d recommend a knife.”

  Suddenly the beam of the torch shot out of the crowd, bouncing across the floor. Clarissa ducked under the bar and picked it up, clicking it off before the batteries were gone altogether; then the crowd went still all at once, and the only sound was a single voice, rising and falling in pain and fear. It was the boy,
crying out from the center of the mob, where he’d fallen hard from a tabletop, the insistent, unnatural rhythm of his breath sending a chill through her bones.

  Breath?

  The baby bucked so hard it ripped her belly open. A tiny foot split the skin, straining against the fabric of her dress. Too shocked to process the rupture, she shoved her hand against the sole hard enough to force it inside, then elbowed through the drunkards, jockeying for a glimpse.

  Breath.

  The boy sat rocking on the floor, his chest rapidly rising and falling, his hand clamped to his forehead, where blood poured out of him, thinned by moonshine, a sticky, bright, impossible rivulet mingling with the swill on the floor.

  “Bl—bluh—”

  “Can’t be.”

  “What else?”

  She could have stepped in. They always listened when she yelled. But this boy had heat in his veins while her baby was dead and cold. Where was the justice in that? Why should anybody be allowed to breathe when her sweet child never had, never could?

  Clarissa didn’t speak, didn’t move. She just stared.

  “Is it?”

  “It is!”

  “Blood?”

  “Can’t be!”

  Disbelieving, one among them started to peel back his skin, slowly, just to see what would happen. Then, hearing the shout at what he’d seen, what he’d felt, the others crowded closer. One by one, they lowered their hands. Rough, sharp-tipped fingers dug into the boy’s sides, making fists around his flesh, pulling harder. Every gobbet came as a surprise.

  The drunkards were hollering now, but the boy was louder. The screams spilling out of him were like nothing she’d heard, not since her sister had given birth.

  “Blood!”

  “He’s—still living!”

  “A living man!”

  “Alive?”

  He went quiet, soon enough, but the crowd didn’t.

  They were giggling like children digging into a broken piñata.