I hear nothing, no steps, no crackling twigs, no breathing. After four hundred yards, I stop and catch my breath, crouching motionless in the dark.
Snap.
There, close to my left. A boot on a twig in the dark, and a whispered curse. And then I see it, fifty feet away. The pale face of one of the ghost men, like a miniature moon floating amid the trees. He peers this way and that, takes a step, listens, then one more step. I hold my breath and do not move, glad that there is a large tree next to me. It obscures me with deeper shadow, and it might provide protection from the arrow he’s got nocked to the string of his bow.
“Ha!” A shout from farther away. “Ha! Hey! Ha! Go away! Get out of here!”
It’s the girl’s voice, urgent and scared. Without pausing, the ghost man abandons his search and leaps into a bounding sprint through the trees toward her shout.
“Go away, bear! No!” Her shouts go up in pitch, and I try to lock my eyes onto their source. A bear. Surely she’s still tied up, unable to defend herself. No wonder she’s panicked. While I try to make out the figures in the clearing, I wonder if it would be preferable to be dismembered by a bear or be eaten alive by ghost-men.
“Ha!” This is a ghost-man’s shout, deeper and menacing, with a rumble to it that brings a growl from the bear. They’re far off, two hundred yards at least, but now I see the two pale faces of the ghost men, jumping around like lunatics with hornets in their shorts. There’s a bear between them, and they’re waving their arms and waving their bows and shouting at it. “Go away! Get out! Go! Go! Shoo!”
The bear, lit up by the pale moonlight in the small clearing, rears up and stands, a huge monster at least as tall as I am. Its black fur glistens, and it bares its white teeth in a growling snarl. The commotion is loud and frantic, giving me an opportunity to get closer. While they yell and dance, I glide between the trees and pick out a wide redwood not far from their clearing. I make straight for it and crouch between its roots just as the bear relents, turns, and gallops off into the darkness.
The ghost-men watch it go. It looks back once as it flees but does not return. I have run into bears like this on my travels north before, and they’re easy to intimidate. Although they’ll eat a person if they’re hungry enough—and, apparently, they’ll also eat a mutant—they prefer prey that does not fight back. The ghost-men watch until it is well out of sight.
By chance, I’ve picked a good tree. I had hoped to hunker among the wide roots, but this tree has had its insides burned out so the outer shell forms a little cave. The gaping hole into its giant trunk—it is as big around as Southshaw’s festival fire pit, about twice as thick as I am tall—faces away from the clearing. I slip inside, careful of spider webs and small animals, and discover it’s quite cozy. This tree burned years ago, possibly centuries ago, and the ground under it is soft and rich. The stagnant air is warm and moist, smelling strongly of loam and fresh rain. Best of all, a small gap in the wood glows with moonlight, a few feet off the ground.
Standing, I can look through the gap, which is no wider than my fist, straight at the clearing. Sitting below the hole with my back against the inside of the trunk, I can hear every sound from the ghost-men as if they stood just outside. In the pitch darkness of my hiding place, the sounds seem almost magnified. Carefully, slowly, I slip my pack off my shoulders and set it near the exit. The cool evening air feels good on my hot back. Sweat is beading on my forehead in this warm, damp place, and I wipe it away with my hand, back through my tangled hair. I am beginning to wonder what happened to my cap when the ghost men start talking.
“I don’t think he’ll be back,” says one.
“Lucky for him, we already have a deer,” replies the other. “Or we’d be bringing bear meat home tomorrow.”
The mutant girl speaks next. “And a rabbit,” she says.
And a tasty mutant girl, I think.
Her voice is still sturdy and unwavering, with a smoothness that makes me want to hear it more. She’s angry, I can tell that much just from her tone. But who wouldn’t be angry, tied up and captive? “Let’s not forget my rabbit.” She emphasizes each word but puts special power behind my rabbit. “Unless—“
“Oh, no, we won’t forget your rabbit,” one ghost-man says.
“But, since you’re our prisoner, that sort of makes it our rabbit, doesn’t it?”
“Besides,” the first says, “we saved you from that bear. You owe us.”
“What?”
“We saved you.” The first again. His voice has an eagerness to it, with an almost childish extension of the vowels. Weee saaaaved youuu.
“Yeah,” says the second. “From the bear. You remember the bear. Big, black thing. Nasty sharp teeth.”
“Oh, really nasty,” the first pipes.
“Yes, I remember the freaking bear. It was about to take my face off,” the girl says. “Because you tied me up and left me here.”
“Oh, no need to go pointing fingers,” the second says. His voice is deeper, more measured. I can hear amusement at the edges of the words. He’s having fun with her. “There’s plenty of blame to go around, but remember, there are three of us here, and only two of us saved you.”
The first pops in again: “Let’s not forget that.”
There’s a pause, and I can tell the ghost men think it’s the girl’s turn. The forest has fallen silent around us since the commotion. No haunting hoots of owls or even the whirr of bats flying past. Even crickets have let off their chirping as if waiting, like I am, for the girl’s reply. Instead, the underlying silence only accentuates her heavy, angry breathing.
Then, some sounds of motion outside.
“Rest time over. Time to move on,” the first ghost-man chirps. I sit up straighter. I didn’t expect them to go on the move again so soon. Aren’t they going to stay a while? Do they not sleep?
“No,” the girl says.
“Yup,” says the second ghost-man. “Sorry, friend, but it’s time to move along.”
“Go ahead,” she says. “But I’m not going anywhere.”
There’s another pause. I think, Good for her! It won’t do her any good, but I’m glad she’s not just going to stand up and walk to her death. Probably the ghost-men can carry her and the deer without much problem, though.
The first ghost-man says, “I don’t know that I can carry her, Tom. My shoulder.”
“I know.” The amusement has drained from Tom’s voice. “I know. It’s not your fault.”
“I could stay with her. It’s not that far, only a couple of miles. You could go on ahead and come back with some help in a few hours.”
“Or,” the girl says, “you could leave me here and go on together.” She says it simply matter-of-fact, like she’s one of them.
I have to smile at her confidence and audacity. They’d never leave her here alone. Why bother marching her all this way, saving her from the bear, if they were willing to let her go now? But these are ghost-men and mutants, and they might not behave like normal Southshaw folks. Who knows how or why they do what they do? Until a few hours ago, I didn’t even really believe they existed.
“It’s not like I’m going anywhere.“
“Yeah, we’ll not be leaving you, missy.” The voice, I think it’s Tom’s, has lost all of its good natured chirpiness and falls hard on top of hers like a block of ice. “Be a good little prisoner now and be quiet. The grownups are talking.”
“Hey—“
“I said shut up.”
The girl shuts up. I lift myself slowly from my comfortable leaning spot and peek through the hole in the tree. The night is dark now, with the moon having moved on beyond the western ridge. The ghost-men are surreal shadows floating in the darkness—deep black clothes with pale, death-gray faces. They are walking my way, and one keeps glancing back at the place where I imagine the girl to be. I can’t see her, whether for the blackness of the night or whether she’s lying down out of sight, I can’t tell.
The ghost-men come all
the way to the edge of my tree. They walk quickly and silently, moving as if it were mid day, unbothered by the darkness. Apart from their eerie skin, so far they have appeared more like regular men than ghosts. But their ease in walking, and the hiss of their voices so close makes me wonder if maybe I’ve gotten too relaxed in my pursuit of them. They head straight for my tree as if they know through some magic that I am here. I slip back down so they don’t see my eyes, which from outside the tree must look like two stark white miniatures of their glowing faces floating in the blackness. I reach for and silently drag my pack closer. I squeeze the hilt of my hunting knife.
“I don’t like leaving you here.”
“I’ll be OK, Tom. This is safe country here.”
“That’s what we thought of the beach at emerald bay.”
Emerald bay? Interesting name for that place, I think. I’ve heard of emeralds but never seen one.
“I can still shoot.”
“That’s true. Nice work with the deer, by the way.”
“Thanks.”
“You know the law. We’re never to split up outside Subterra.”
“And you know the other law, Tom.”
Their debate comes in urgent tones, but subdued. They sound like my father and Mister Shepherd when they’re talking about something bad, and they already know the outcome but don’t want to admit it out loud.
“Really, Tom, it’s only a few miles. You know I won’t fall asleep.”
“Maybe we could leave her. Find someplace safe in case that bear comes back. Tie her up good. Then I could come back with Brock, or Franz, or—“
“No witnesses.”
“Stay together.”
They pause, and I can hear their low breathing. The night has resumed some, but not all, of its sounds, but these two are so close that I can even smell them. A vague odor of sweat and dampness drifts through the hole in the tree. It’s an old, stagnant smell, like canvas left wet in a dark barn all winter. It’s strange but not unpleasant. Still, I breathe as shallow as possible. If I can hear them, they can hear me. I’m surprised they can’t hear my heart beating; the way it’s thumping, it must be shaking the redwood's branches.
“All right. I’ve got no choice.” This is Tom. “Anything goes wrong—anything—hightail it to the door.”
“Right.” They walk away, their footsteps shuffling through twigs and old leaves with the barest of rustling. I push myself up against the inside of the trunk again and peek through the hole. I keep my eyes slits, so the scene is now both dark and blurry. But I don’t dare give myself away.
“Well?” The girl’s voice rings clear in the darkness. “What now?”
There’s some movement and shuffling around, and one of the ghost men flits here and there for nearly a minute. He says nothing. The other stands a little way away, watching. Suddenly the first kneels and, with a grunt, rises again with a heavy load on his shoulders. The deer, of course. He turns to face the other one. “Anything. Right?”
The second lets the briefest of pauses pass before he answers. “Right.”
“Don’t screw around. Anything.”
“Anything, Tom. Right.” An edge has crept into both their voices, and this second one sounds a bit angry now. “Just hurry, okay?”
“Fast as I can. This thing’s heavy.”
The girl has been watching—I see her now, sitting near the feet of the second ghost man, looking from one to the other and back again. I can’t see her features, but her head turns, her long black hair swaying.
“So what—“ she begins, but she’s cut off by Tom turning and charging off into the woods at a quick trot, the head of the deer bouncing on his shoulder. The other watches him go for a few seconds, then turns to the girl.
“We’re to wait until he gets back.”
“Ah.”
“It won’t be long. Two or three hours at most. Before dawn, for sure.”
“Great.”
“I’m really sorry we have to do this.”
“Yeah, you bet. No problem.”
They fall silent, this ghost apparently realizing he’s not going to get any conversation from his prisoner. I can’t really believe they plan to eat her alive. I wouldn’t expect them to be so… so nice to someone they’re planning on pulling apart, bit by bit, then eating those bits as she watches. Maybe these aren’t evil beings. Maybe they’re not the scary phantoms of childhood stories.
Then again, how should a ghost-man speak to his future meal? Roger, the old man who raises the goats along the edge of the lake in Southshaw—he whispers to his goats and sings to them, tells them he loves them right before he slits their throats. He says it calms them.
My blood runs cold to think of such evil in these creatures. The knife is still in my hand, its solid weight a comfort in this strange, dark place. There’s only one of them now, and he’s injured. They’re strong and fast, but so am I, and if I’m silent I could sneak up on him.
Leaving my pack on the ground, I slip silently outside the trunk. The air outside hits me like a cold wind after the warm dankness of my little cave. I hold my knife low, in my right hand, keeping it near my leg so the blade won’t glint in the starlight. I feel heat rush into my cheeks, feel my breath quicken as I slowly, cautiously pick my way through the dark underbrush and ferns, closer to the clearing.
I can see them. The ghost-man has his back to me and is sitting on the ground. The girl is sitting also, propped up against a tree. She’s facing me, but her eyes are closed. I’m a mere twenty yards from them, moving one step every few seconds.
I keep my eyes locked on the ghost-man’s back. He seems to be listening to the forest, but so far he’s not heard me. Fifteen yards now. If he moves, I can sprint the distance before he can loose an arrow. But I need another eight or nine yards before I can get him before he rises—
The girl gasps. I freeze and glance at her, and our eyes meet for an instant. In that moment, I see her shock and feel energy course through me. Should I charge and knife the ghost-man in the back? Should I stop and see if he moves? Hesitation is the worst possible option, but I hesitate as my gaze locks onto the girl’s. An avalanche of thoughts thunder through my head. Why am I here? Why did I follow them? What the hell am I doing, sneaking up on this creature before me? And am I about to die, alone and foolish in a part of the forest no one from Southshaw knows? Just days before my sixteenth birthday—
I’ve hesitated too long. He's rising, bow in hand, his legs tensed and feet twisting in the floor of pine needles and dead leaves as he begins turning toward me. The knife flips in my hand and the blade is smooth and cool between my fingertips. My hand rises to my ear automatically as I look away from the girl and focus on that place where the ghost’s heart will be when he has completed his turn and is facing me. Cold realization hits: I have only one knife, so I’d better be fast, and deadly.
The girl groans loud, with a terrible guttural sound like she’s about to puke out her stomach, and she pitches to one side. The ghost stops in mid-turn, and my arm stops in mid-throw. Something compels me without thought, and the knife has fallen from my hand and I’m running, almost flying over the roots and rocks and ferns. I’m crashing across the clearing louder than any bear, and I reach him at full speed just as he’s raising his bow at me. I see his eyes, pale green and wide. I see his lips, almost as pink as the flesh of a river salmon. I hear his ribs crack as my shoulder ploughs full into his chest and we both fly across the clearing in a painful tumble.
His bow has clattered away. The girl is standing nearby, moving but I can’t care about her. The ghost is gurgling with rage or pain or both. I feel the bruise spreading deep and hot through my shoulder. One somersault and I pop up to my feet before he can recover. I’m behind him. I raise my fist and hit him hard on the back of his head, just at the top of the neck. He’s not ready for it, still not sure where I am, and his head waggles unnaturally. His legs go slack, and he collapses to the ground with a puff of dust.
I wheel to see
the girl kneeling fifteen yards away, where I dropped my knife. The knife is in her hands. Her hands are free, and the cords that bound them now lie at her feet. Her eyes are dark, nearly black but glinting starlight. Her gaze is locked on me as she kneels, motionless and tense. I have nothing to defend me. I put out my hands, palms up, to show her.
She glances at the fallen ghost-man, but I know he won’t be getting up for several hours. Her gaze locks back on me, studying me just as I’m studying her. Seconds pass, both of us motionless. She might be deciding whether to kill me. She could. I remember the rabbit, the whishing of the blade through the air, the rabbit’s flight stopped before it started.
“Well?” I say.
“Well, what?” Her smooth voice contains none of the tension I expect. She sounds as if she’s discussing the color of the cloudless sky on a lazy day with a best friend.
“Well, what now?”
She studies me in the darkness of the night. After several seconds during which all I can hear is my own heart pounding in my ears and all I can think is how beautiful her black hair and deep eyes are, she responds. “Really. Is that the best you can come up with?”
She stands slowly, my knife still visible and tight in her hand. She’s holding the handle, not the blade, and I realize she wants me to see. Her movement is smooth and steady, controlled like a hunter’s. She’s no rough yearling on spindly, unsure legs. She has a solid build, a purpose of movement that shows the strength in her frame and her muscles hidden under her thick, loose shirt and rough trousers.
When we’re both standing straight, she lets her hands drop to her sides. I realize mine are still out, palms up, and I allow them to fall as well. She shakes her head at me with a look of pity. “You didn’t even come up with it yourself. You stole that from me.”
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