The Dead Sleep in the Wilderness

by Yukako Kabeif

  But the words she had ready all flew out of her head, and completely different ones came to her mouth. “Don’t go.”

  As she watched, the Corporal went speechless. Next to her, Harvey asked in surprise, “Kieli?” But now that she had started, the barrier she had built in her mind shattered, and the things that she had planned not to say came flooding out, one after another.

  “Can’t you stay in the radio forever? Then I can keep it, and we can be always be together. We just got to know each other; I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to go!”

  “Kieli…”

  “What’s with the tantrum all of a sudden? This isn’t like you.”

  “It’s not not like me! I was thinking it the whole time; I just wasn’t saying it!” she yelled back at Harvey’s questioning tone in spite of herself. She knew that saying it would only bother the Corporal and exasperate Harvey, but she couldn’t stop. “I mean, I don’t have Becca anymore; I’ll be all alone again. The only people I can make friends with are dead, but they all leave me and go far away. I wish I was dead, too. I wish I was a ghost.”

  “Hey, that’s not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny. Should I die and become a ghost, too? Then can we be together forever?”

  “Hey, cut it out!” he reprimanded her sharply, roughly grabbing her shoulders. She faltered a little under Harvey’s stern expression, but she refused to back down, and instead rounded on him: “What do you care, Harvey? You’re just going to go away somewhere, too!

  “Kill me! Make me a ghost and take me with you! It would be easy for you, wouldn’t it, Harvey!? Just like you did to the Corporal, kill —”

  “Kieli!” The Corporal’s angry shout flew from the radio and hit her in the abdomen. She stopped her rant with a gasp. What did I just say?

  She looked up to see copper-colored eyes looking down at her, having lost their expression.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

  I didn’t mean to say those things. Her excuse stuck in her throat and never made it to her lips. The person in her mind who had been spurring her on to say those things had suddenly run away, and all at once her head cooled and her reason returned.

  “…I’m sorry, Harvey. I’m sorry…” She looked down, unable to face him; all she could do anymore was apologize. She hated herself. It wasn’t their idea for her to tag along with them, and now she bothered them with this. Then to top it off, she said all those terrible things.

  The tears that now overflowed from her eyes stained the ground here and there. On this weighty land, thick with the blood of soldiers, Kieli’s tears were so light, so trivial; they were worth nothing. Standing in the middle of the graveyard, her own sobs were all that she could hear, unusually clear in the enveloping silence.

  “Kieli.” After a time, Harvey’s quiet, emotionless voice came to her from overhead. “When we get back to town tomorrow, go back to Easterbury. I’ll take you as far as the station.”

  Kieli hung her head, staring at the tips of Harvey’s shoes, and didn’t answer. Her chest hurt from trying too hard to control her sobbing. “Kieli,” Harvey said again. His flat tone indicated that he was only reiterating, not giving her a choice in the matter. Kieli took a moment, then gave a small nod.

  Harvey exhaled some cigarette smoke that rose into the dark gray sky, then gradually melted away and disappeared. The grave markers resembled dead branches as they extended in rows to the distant horizon; under the faintly brightening sky, he could tell that the cemetery in the wilderness was far more vast than they had seen in the darkness the night before.

  Countless men had lost their lives here. And he had taken some — possibly a large number — of them himself.

  As he leaned against the cart’s outside wall, smoking and waiting for morning to arrive, he felt someone’s presence next to him. The next thing he knew, the spirit of a soldier was standing beside him, gazing, like him, at the endless sea of graves.

  “You going, Corporal?”

  “Yeah. I’m thinking I’ll leave before Kieli wakes up.”

  “I see.” Harvey glanced behind him. The black-haired girl was sleeping soundly on the cart’s floor, covering herself with her coat. Her face showed how long she had been crying; the Corporal’s hushed voice came from the radio she held closely to her chest.

  They wouldn’t be able to start back until morning anyway, so the Corporal stayed one last night with Kieli. That night was about to end.

  “Herbie, are you sure about this?”

  “Harvey.” He figured this would be the last time they had this exchange as he answered the Corporal, keeping his voice low so not to wake Kieli. “Sure about what?”

  “Are you sure you’re okay with leaving Kieli?”

  “It doesn’t matter if I’m okay with it. She just has a bit of a strong spiritual sense; other than that, she’s a normal girl. She’ll be happier living in normal society. If she’s with me, she’ll be living like an outcast.”

  “You can cut the act. What I’m asking is are you okay with it?”

  “What’s it got to do with me?” Harvey blinked. But the Corporal’s gaunt profile only gazed at the grave markers in front of him and didn’t answer. Taken aback, Harvey stared at the profile for a few seconds, then looked wordlessly back at the tombs. After inhaling a puff of smoke and exhaling it slowly, he responded, “I don’t care. It’s easier to be alone.” After all the time he took to come up with a response, he could still only give a noncommittal one.

  “You’re more stubborn than I thought. For all the long time you’ve lived, it looks like the inside of your head hasn’t matured much.”

  “Well, excuse me.”

  He thought he saw the Corporal smirk, but his shape gradually faded and he could no longer make out an expression. The sand-colored morning sun pierced a small gap in the thick clouds and began to illuminate the graveyard.

  “One more thing, Herbie.”

  “Harvey. This really is the last time I’m gonna correct you.”

  The Corporal’s appearance gradually disappeared, as if melting into the morning light. “The truth is you wanted to die here, isn’t it? You ending up agreeing to bring me here, and visiting your old friends — it looked to me like you were squaring off past accounts.…”

  The voice from the radio dissolved into the silence with his form, and those became the last words of the spirit that had possessed the radio.

  Harvey stared at the empty space where the soldier’s spirit had been for a while after that. He noticed ash from his cigarette falling onto his shoe and looked down at it, then closed his eyes and let out a bitter laugh. You didn’t have to worry about me in your last moments.…

  “…Well, I guess we’d better set out soon, too.”

  He had to wake Kieli, but when he thought of the look on her face when she opened her eyes to find out that the Corporal was no longer inside the radio, he faltered. He heaved a sigh and dropped his cigarette butt onto the track. As he was about to stamp it out, he let out an involuntarily yelp as he suddenly lost his support and tottered backward.

  When he turned around, the cart was running. “Just a…What?” Panicking, he rushed after it and grabbed its side wall; it sped up all at once the instant he jumped inside and slid down the track. The grave-keeper ghost had suddenly appeared above the cart, driving it straight for the abandoned mine’s winch tower, sometimes throwing worried glances behind them.

  “What the…?” When Harvey leaned over the cart’s back wall and squinted at the far end of the train tracks, he could see the headlights of a train far off in the brightening wilderness. It must have been a big train; he could feel its vibrations coming through the tracks.

  “Harvey? What?” a girl’s nervous voice came from behind him. The cart’s movement had woken her up, and Kieli sat on the floor and looked to either side in bewilderment, holding her coat and the radio. He glanced back to confirm, then threw his gaze back to their rear.

  It was a black
ened train, covered in excessive armor. It quickly closed the gap between them and appeared as if it would flatten the small cart.

  He turned around to see the impending winch tower waiting in front of them, its arched mouth open wide. The instant the cart slipped inside, the outside scene changed completely, as if a curtain had dropped, to an enclosed, indoor scene.

  “It’s an armored Church car,” Harvey said quickly, turning on his heels and crouching in front of Kieli. “If you scream, you’ll bite your tongue. Got it?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, but wrapped his arm around her waist and picked her up, using his other arm as a pivot to jump over the wall and throw himself out of the cart. “Hya!” Kieli started to scream, but swallowed it back as Harvey had told her. At the same time he landed, he made a 180-degree turn, the lower half of Kieli’s body flailing, and braked by scraping his knee and shoe against the ground. Smoke hissed from his sole.

  Immediately afterward, the train charged into the tunnel with a thunderous roar and smashed the cart to smithereens. The grave-keeper ghost left behind a feeble scream, resembling a ringing in the ears, as it vanished. Kieli, clinging to Harvey’s neck, let out an astonished cry in his ear.

  The armored train stopped, half of its body of linked black cars inside the tunnel. Clouds of smoke billowed from its wheels, and before they dissipated, doors opened in the train’s sides, revealing people (assuming they were humans inside) wearing full-faced white armor. Every one of them carried a weighty, high-caliber gun in his arms. They were uniquely stocky guns, somewhat shorter than rifles, with thicker barrels.

  Carbonization guns…

  They were the special guns of the Church Soldiers’ Undying hunters. Harvey swore under his breath. Assuming he was right, and they were after him, where did they find him out? He cursed himself for getting too comfortable after so many years of boredom.

  He rapidly scanned the area around him, looking for a place to escape, as he backed away from them. The only exit to the outside was blocked by the enormous armored train. He could see that a lift went deep under the winch tower, but not whether it was broken or was at a lower level. There was no lift at the landing, just a square shaft gaping open on the other side of the rails closing it off.

  Guess I’ll have to jump…

  He would have avoided that option if he could have, but at the moment he couldn’t come up with any better ideas, so he turned on his heels, still holding Kieli. He could manage it by himself, but he wasn’t confident that he could keep Kieli safe, jumping when he didn’t know how far down it was or what it was like at the bottom.

  It was then that he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the front line of Church Soldiers readying their strangely shaped carbonization guns.

  “Get away!” he said, shaking the girl off his neck and pushing her away, and then…

  Fwa-boom!

  The sound unique to the firing of a carbonization gun rang through to the winch tower’s ceiling. Four shots rang out in succession. He felt the shock of the first bullet as it blew a chunk out of his right leg; the rest merely bored into the ground at his feet.

  “Kuh!” He automatically put out his right leg to steady himself, but, having no support, the leg collapsed onto the ground; he lost his balance and toppled over.

  “Harvey!”

  “Idiot! I said stay away!” He pushed Kieli aside as she ran to him and tried to shield him. The Church Soldiers’ second attack —

  The second attack didn’t come. For some reason, the Church Soldiers held their fire, as if unsure how to react.

  “……?”

  Harvey fixed his gaze on the enemy and thought for a second, then wrapped his arm around Kieli’s neck. A few of them raised their guns instinctively. “Wait!” The one who seemed to be their leader restrained them. Of course.…

  “Don’t move!” Harvey’s voice echoed against the tower’s high ceiling, surprising Kieli, and she stopped moving. And for some reason, the Church Soldiers, aiming their guns this way, froze as well.

  Then Harvey’s arms grabbed her from behind, lifting her up and covering her mouth so violently his fingers dug into her cheek. “Make a move, and I break her neck,” Harvey said, in a menacing voice, and, still holding Kieli, he backed away slowly, with one arm and one leg.

  She didn’t really understand the situation. Harvey had captured her and was covering her mouth. He was saying that if they moved, he would break “her” neck — probably Kieli’s. The Church Soldiers didn’t move.

  “Kieli. Be quiet and do what I tell you. Understand?” Harvey whispered into the confused Kieli’s ear, in a tone that only Kieli would hear. When she gave a small nod, her mouth still covered, Harvey loosened his grip some.

  “They’re only after me. You were only tricked. You didn’t know I’m an Undying. They’re going to help you and take you into protective custody. If they ask you about me, you just have to tell them you don’t know anything. They’ll believe you. Because it doesn’t make any sense that a girl from boarding school would be with an Undying. You can go back to the boarding school and go back to your normal life without being suspected of anything.”

  “No,” Kieli replied immediately, shaking her head slightly. Harvey tightened his grip around her neck. “But what will you do, Harvey? Will I ever see you again?” she asked, clinging to his arm and looking up at him.

  “…I’ll run,” was the only response he gave. He didn’t answer her second question.

  Harvey retreated as far as the lift’s landing and stopped. All too ready to spring into action, one man in armor stepped forward, but another armored hand held him back — because Harvey squeezed his “hostage’s” neck. His fingers dug mercilessly into the nape of her neck, choking her, and Kieli let out a hoarse scream.

  “Harve…”

  “I’m sorry. I have to show them I mean it,” he whispered in her ear, in a cold, comfortless voice. “This is perfect; they saved me the trouble of taking you to the station. Relax. They’ll take you back and treat you all right.”

  As he groped behind him for the lift’s iron railing, Harvey stood up, dragging Kieli with him, then tottered on his foot. “Harvey, no. I mean, you’re hurt…” Kieli spoke up impulsively, but he covered her mouth again.

  “…Good-bye, Kieli. You’ll never see me again.” With that final remark, he let go of Kieli’s neck and shoved her in the back. Kieli slouched forward, stumbled, and fell to the ground.

  The Church Soldiers took that as a signal and made their move in unison. Harvey turned on his heels and jumped over the rail. Concentrated fire flew over Kieli’s head into the elevator landing as she lay flat on her face.

  By that time, Harvey had disappeared into the shaft.

  “Raise the lift!” a muffled voice yelled angrily through its owner’s helmet, and the metallic footsteps of the men in armor chased hurriedly after him.

  Kieli didn’t have the energy to stand. One of the armored men knelt beside her and said something to make sure she was safe, but his voice and the commotion around them all sounded so far away and didn’t penetrate into her head. The last thing Harvey said, his low voice and breathing as he whispered in her ear, the subtle intonation of every single word, echoed in the core of her brain. Good-bye, Kieli. You’ll never see me again. Good-bye, Kieli.…

  “We blew a chunk out of his leg. He can’t have gone far. Find him,” a determined shout passed over his head, followed by the sound of lots of footsteps. Wrinkling his brow at the thought that it was a Church Soldier, supposedly a pure, upright servant of God saying those things, Harvey waited until the footstops had gone a long way away and crawled out of a cavity in the earth.

  The tunnel continued beyond the darkness, surrounded by imposing rock walls on three sides. A narrow track for mine carts ran along the ground, but it was broken in places and wouldn’t be of any use.

  “Damn…” He started to walk with only his left leg, dragging his right leg and using the rock wall for support. They’d complet
ely taken off the muscle and bone from below his knee to his ankle, and his right foot could only dangle — it had been rendered completely useless for actions such as walking. Not a single drop of blood fell from the black, carbonized wound.

  The abnormal regeneration speed of an Undying’s cells existed in their unique blood; using that knowledge, the Undying Hunters carried guns that not only reduced a wide target area to ash, but evaporated the Undyings’ blood. To reactivate their healing ability, they would have no choice but to use a blade or something to deepen a wound further to get it to bleed. It ended up in a very masochistic situation that no sane person would be able to handle; and on top of that, they would have to wait for the newly carved wound to heal, so it could hardly be called efficient.

  “I’m such an idiot…” Harvey cursed at himself as he walked. He meant to concentrate all his energies on moving himself forward, but one half of his brain was thinking of something else.

  He shouldn’t have taken Kieli with him to begin with — he’d put her in danger and ended up giving her to the Church, of all things, and to put it bluntly, he couldn’t help any of that now. But the betrayed look on her face when he told her she would never see him again — that one thing burned into his eyes and would not leave. He didn’t think having her look at him like that would affect him so much.

  Argh, I’m such an idiot…

  Ahead of him, things got noisy again, and he could see the flickers of returning lights. He ran his eyes to the right and left and found an inconspicuous hollow in the wall next to him that led to a side tunnel. An iron railing closed it off. It was impossible for him to climb over it, so he crawled through the opening underneath. He had just managed, somehow, to pull his entire body through with his arms when the footsteps came back. He plastered himself to the wall and held his breath. About half of the men who had gone deeper into the tunnel ran past on the path he had just taken.

  He breathed a sigh of relief for the time being and set his sights farther down the side tunnel. He got the feeling it was faintly brighter, and he started in that direction, leaning against the wall.