“Did he tell you why?” Merchant asks.
Both her and the ghost look up with eyes that scream, FUCKING MORON.
With a sigh Merchant puts his head back against the cement of the overpass.
“Then you found me,” Merchant says.
Red spits into the fire and her phlegm sizzles and pops.
“Yeah, by some shear stroke of fucking luck, old Hectar was always good at smelling out the fresh ones. Followed you and that bitch’s trail even through that damn storm. Damn near killed half of us. Hooked up with that monster and his lackeys… and well,” she trails off.
“Well, what?” Merchant asks.
He can feel the night pulling closer around his shoulders. A blanket of darkness that hugs him tight and suffocates him with its warmth. They will not be alone this evening. Their hunger is as strong as their odor. Some are too close for his liking. He opens his eyes and Red is back to digging into her bag. Snake-Eyes is nowhere to be seen.
“You know the rest. Your stupid heavy as shit bag, the pit… that stupid dead bitch back in old crazy town. You having a hard time remembering too?”
No, he isn’t having a hard time remembering anything. With a squeeze of his arm, he pulls his bag closer.
“There wasn’t anything you could have done to save me,” a new ghost says.
The veil between their world and hers wavers and melts like white foam as she materializes. She looks just like the last time he saw her. Brown hair growing gangly from a rough shaving. Face gaunt from a hard life and too much pent-up anger. There is a difference though. Her eyes are softer, less dagger and more pillow as they watch the fire.
Merchant takes a deep breath full of smoke and shadow. The taste is sweet on his tongue and he feels the darkness sink deep within his soul; where it belongs.
“I realized what I wanted before the end,” Elizabeth says. Her chest is a bright red against the white blouse were the bullets from the rifle tore through her. “You gave that to me. All that time I had wanted to be alone. Needed to be alone, but it wasn’t right.”
He can feel the cold touch crackle over his skin as the ghost presses right against him, shoulder to shoulder as if for warmth as she sits on the dirt with her knees pulled over the gaping wounds in her chest. At least this time she doesn’t have a shotgun pointed at him.
“I had found my freedom, and, in the end, I found my peace. Can you do that, Merchant?” Elizabeth asks.
Can he?
A howl cries into the night and the last remnants of a red sun dip beyond the horizon. The hunting has started.
Merchant pushes away from the wall and finds his way to his feet. Red looks up from where she digs deeper into her empty bag, searching for what isn’t there. Like a small pet her eyes are curious and her mind excited at the slightest movement.
“I’m going for a walk,” he says.
She tilts her head to the side but doesn’t say anything.
With a grunt he hefts his bag over his shoulder.
“When I get back, you are going to finish that damn story and tell me more about this ‘Collector’.”
Red’s eyes widen and then narrow.
“What Collector?”
He growls back at her.
“Just stay where you are.”
Grinding his heels into the ground with each pounding step, Merchant heads into the darkness of the night.
2
When Evil Comes to Town
A clean white sheet. A blanket of soft cotton pulled tight over chest and shoulders. There is no movement, yet the day has left the morning behind and the sun is high and warm.
“Do you think they are still alive?” Kelly asks.
The door on the other side of the darkened room begins to open, and she drops down off her toes and lands hard on the ground. A small pinch of pain rattles her butt and she can taste the dirt around her dress as it puffs up into the air.
“Brother George wouldn’t be keeping them in the sick room if they were dead,” Albert answers.
Fat Albert as they call him sits beside her. Denim overalls and thick wool shirt even though the summer heat is quickly approaching. He wipes the wet locks of his dark hair away from his eyes and watches both directions of the small alley between the Sick House and its neighboring tool shed.
The other teenagers can be so mean to him because he’s a little round and always smells of the pigs they raise at the edge of town, but he’s the nicest of them all. He makes her smile and though the others don’t know it, he’s really good at keeping a secret.
“I know that stupid, but didn’t you see it? They weren’t moving at all, not even breathing,” she says.
Pushing off the wall, her knees scratch over the dry dirt and she grimaces at the feel of the fabric pulling against tiny stones. The thought of spending another night mending clothes pulls a dread on an evening that is still hours away. Patting away the coating of dust and debris, she checks the damage as she stands up. Not too much. A few streaks of stretched thread. Quick work that maybe no one will notice.
Taking a deep, hushed breath, Kelly turns back to the window and pulls Albert up with her by his shirt’s collar. It is sweaty like the rest of him.
“Look, they are going to try and feed them,” she whispers.
The windowsill smells like dust and tickles her nose. Small flakes of paint poke at the skin of her chin but she can see enough to look inside. One of the town nurses, in her scrubbed white dress and dark hair pulled into a tight bun, is taking a seat by the bed with the stranger. They don’t move. The sheets remain still even as a towel is pulled out from a water basin and placed gently over pale skin wrapped in dark hair.
“See, would they be doing that for a dead person?” Albert asks.
“But they aren’t moving at all. How would you react if I threw a bucket of water on your head while you were sleeping? Huh, Bert. Or maybe I should throw you in with the hogs next time I stop by your house,” she says.
A quick punch to his shoulder and his eyes narrow as a smile spreads across his round cheeks. She takes a swipe at the locks of damp curls dangling over his eyes. He ducks below the swing and she lazily misses by inches.
“I won’t be the one who’s the pig’s dinner tonight, little missy,” he chides.
She giggles.
“You’ll have to catch me first!”
Kelly spins on her heels, and though her thin shoes of worn leather give no comfort from the hard ground and pointy stones, she leaves her best friend in the dust.
She races around the corner. The thunder of his heavy boots, as loud as a bear’s paw clawing its way out of the forest, already begins to fade. He isn’t exactly the fastest runner, but what he lacks in speed, he makes up in tenacity. He’ll never give up, no matter how far she runs.
The chase is short and sweet as her face meets with an unexpected chest and her feet slip over tiny pebbles. The bright sky opens up, and the ground hurts as rock and tuffs of grass poke like needles through fabric and into skin not so welcoming to harsh treatment.
Kelly hits the ground with a thump.
Not exactly how she wanted this race to end.
“Hold on there, child, where do you think you are going?” a deep voice, soft and warm like milk and honey asks.
Kelly swipes at the cloud of dust like an annoying fly and the sweat in her face stings at her eyes. She can taste the sharp and gritty grains of dirt as they crunch between her teeth.
Albert slides in beside her, kicking up a wagon worth of more dust with his boots. Kelly coughs and chokes with the cloud.
“Oh, hi, Brother George. We didn’t know you were there,” Albert says between gasps of breath.
“I can be kind of sneaky like that,” George says. He reaches out and extends an open hand to Kelly. “Like God above, there is always someone looking out for the people in his flock.”
Taking a grip of his long fingers, Kelly lets him pull her off the ground. She isn’t a very large woman, now having seen sixt
een summers, but Brother George barely seems to notice her weight. A good bet he’d notice George though.
Her lips curl at the small joke in her mind as she eyes the burning cheeks and rivers of sweat on the young man’s face before turning back to the priest. She bites at her tongue to keep the chide to herself.
“So sorry for running into you like that,” she says instead. She tries to pat at the dust that now covers his flannel shirt and flat pants, but he quickly swats her effort away with gentle hands. “We were just trying to have some fun before the weather gets too warm.”
George puts a warm hand onto her shoulder. There is so much strength there, the weight both comforting and solid at the same time. She can feel it make its way down her body and even the slightest worry of what will happen as the harshness of the coming months hangs in the distance washes away.
“Youth playing beneath the warm, open sky is one of God’s greatest gifts. Of course, one of man’s greatest follies is enjoying the plight of others and telling false truths. There are many open grounds around our little town here, is there a reason you are playing around the Sick House?”
Kelly looks over at Albert for support, but the pudgy brained one is all wide-eyed and sweating bullets. Under his arms the large dark spots grow wider with each heaving breath. She would think they had stolen something of significance and been caught already.
“No reason. Just having some fun. Isn’t that right, Bert?”
She turns so that the priest can’t see her face as she glares at her best friend. If he notices her there is no way to tell. His lips are already moving, and she doesn’t want to hear the words.
“Oh, forgive us, brother!” Albert blurts the words which could not come out faster if they were rolling downhill. “We were curious that is all. We didn’t mean anything by it. The rumors… they talk of a new one who has come to town. We… we wanted to see for ourselves before God had worked his miracles.”
Like stones falling off the back of a cart, Bert’s knees hit the ground and she can feel it beneath her feet. An earthquake shattering any hope of this day ending well. Oh, what she would do to be able to slap him across the back of his big, sweaty head.
“Get up my child,” Brother George says with a chuckle. “There is nothing wrong with being curious and yes, the rumors are true. A new member of the family came home last night though in his poor condition there is still so much to be done beneath the watchful eye of our lord to see them back to health. We will pray for his speedy recovery today at church, but the other matter at hand is what do we say about liars?”
His gentle eyes turn hard and firm as he looks to her, and she fights with everything she has not to drop onto her own knees and start blabbing on about every little thing she has done. Her knees shake, and it doesn’t help that Albert is already reciting several ‘Our Fathers’.
“I’m sorry about that,” she says with her eyes at her feet. She kicks at a pebble and watches as it rolls through the dirt. Anything to avoid looking back up at his disapproving glare. “We know that it’s not right to spy and we shouldn’t be here, but the other people can be so mean to Bert. I wanted us to have some fun, so we came over just to sneak a peek. Only for a minute though and just through the window. We weren’t going to bother anyone.”
“And what else, Ms. Rodgers?” Brother George asks.
“Ugh, alright. I’m sorry for lying. I just didn’t think it really mattered and if I could keep the conversation from going where it has, I could stop…”
Kelly waves at Albert who is now bobbing his head with his twelfth prayer in twenty seconds.
Brother George chuckles and taps the top of Albert’s head. Somehow the words speed up and Kelly can’t help but roll her eyes.
She looks at him again and somehow the worry washes away like a nice cold shower. His deep brown eyes sparkle in the sun and the dark skin of his face is smooth as he smiles. He looks at both her and her newly pious friend who is now on his elbows and knees reciting his fifth Hail Mary.
A firm hand wipes through short cut hair of ink black before reaching down to pull her friend off the ground like a puppy.
“I think that will be for God to decide. Besides, I have service to prepare for and it just so happens to be that I’m looking for two helpers with today’s sermon. How would you two like to volunteer?”
Kelly looks over at Albert who is already shaking his head yes.
“That would be great, Brother George,” Kelly says, each word pulling the child’s soul trapped deep inside of her.
She can already feel the heat of the sun go a thousand degrees warmer. There goes an afternoon of games and fun. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
The priest smiles at her before turning and leading them away from the Sick House.
The church is empty. Dark and silent it sits and waits as she counts the pews.
Thirteen to a side. Ten deep if everyone pushes in shoulder to shoulder. Bright streams of light shine down along the aisle ways from arched windows cut high into the rafters. The glass isn’t painted like she’s heard from those who remember the days before the world ended. She remembers some pictures in books that Brother George has shown her, but these aren’t the same. They are bright and unbroken, but clear and practically invisible. Dust filters through the air of the empty room, dancing in the light, and giving everything a warm feeling though it is empty save her and her loosed lipped friend. She really needs to teach him how to keep secrets when it comes to Brother George. The other people in the village? He’s a safe with a lost key, but here in this church, she’s seen cheese with fewer holes in it.
With a sigh, Kelly leans against the altar, her chin in her hands and both elbows holding the weight of the world against the table.
“You ever thought about what’s outside this town, Bert?” she asks.
Her friend doesn’t answer. Dishes clang together and the empty room is a horrible echo chamber. Breaking an entire box of dishes wouldn’t have sounded any louder.
“Could you possibly be anymore clumsy?” she chides her friend with a roll of her eyes.
Cheeks red and sweat pouring down his face from hair now knotted with curls, Bert tries to shuffle the instruments of afternoon mass across the clean linen from the vestibule.
“I… I want to get it perfect. You saw the look on Brother George’s face. He saw what we were doing. We have to get things perfect,” Bert says.
Kelly rolls her eyes again.
“And what? He’ll tell your parents we were chasing each other next to the Sick House? Mass is in less than twenty minutes. I’m pretty sure he’s already forgotten all about that,” she says.
With hands of a doctor compared to his shaking digits of scrubbed red sausage, she takes the crystal glass of farmer Yarial’s wine and the empty serving saucer and puts it in the middle of the small tv tray table. A Bible sits in the corner, already opened to where Bert pulled the silk ribbon to today’s sermon.
“You sure he won’t tell my parents?”
She sighs and puts her arm around his shoulders and rests her head against his. Cold and clammy. He relaxes as she pulls him against her.
“Trust me on this one, Bert. The man isn’t going to tell your parents anything unless we give him reason to, and if I’m correct, you’ve already said enough penance prayers for the both of us. Now where are you going to be sitting?”
Letting him go Kelly turns and heads to the front of the altar as the double doors at the end unlock with an earth shattering click.
“Are my two apprentices ready to serve the lord this wonderful afternoon?” Brother George’s voice bellows out across the empty hall.
Kelly nods yes as dark shadows piling in from the bright light of the town square materialize into people she would recognize in the blink of an eye. Townsfolk she has known for the only years she can remember slowly make their way in from a procession that lines up as far as she can see through the doors.
The older families come in
first. Some with walking canes and others with arms wrapped around one another. Bert and herself are quick to take shaking hands within their own and lead the way to the front pews where they can see and hear the best.
Those young enough to still have children her age and younger fill in last. Babies and toddlers cry and chatter as the silent chamber quickly fills with the sound of life and contentment. The air warms to an uncomfortable level and smells of salt and work.
This is home. Kelly smiles and takes it all in as people slide together and individual voices meld together into a song with words that make a melody to comfort the heart.
Bert slips in beside her as she stands against the frame of the open double doors. To her back is the whole world, the heat of the coming summer already drying the air and before her is all that she has ever known. The last few members of the congregation trickle in and fill the final seats.
“Where are your parents?” she asks.
“Ninth row, tenth in. No one likes to see my father or brothers in the front. Someone once accused us of secretly bringing baby pigs in with us. Stuffed into our pockets.”
“Well, then maybe you shouldn’t,” she chuckles and punches him gently on the shoulder.
“Come on,” he answers with a few rubs of his shoulder.
“It’s never bothered me,” Kelly adds and before he knows it she plants a small kiss on his cheek. “Why don’t you go and sit with your family. There is enough room for you. I can look after old Brother George today.”
“But… but he said he needed two volunteers,” Bert says though his face is so red it may as well be on fire and his eyes dart across every face in the entire building.
He goes back to rubbing his shoulders, and she nibbles on her lower lip to stop from chuckling.
“Two volunteers to help him set up. You did enough and now get yourself moving. I’ve got this covered,” she says and spins away before he can say another word.
Traveling Merchant (Book 2): Pestilence Page 2