by Eric Wood
Deacon. Thinking of him made her want to cry all over again, in a way thinking of her mother did not. What he had meant to her, and what he had eventually done to her.... This. All this pain and confusion and change and uncertainty and awfulness — that was all him, and she no more understood why he did it to her than she understood what he had done to her. All she knew was she was changing, becoming less, and it was because Deacon had turned on her.
Looking back on it now — sick, sore, and alone — maybe she should have seen the whole thing coming. After all, Deacon had been acting differently for a good year before everything finally fell apart. At least as far back as when he had met with that Reaper. The one who talked quiet; the one with the dead eyes. Solomon.
Before that, Deacon had been the best Chieftain she had ever heard of, and he had been hers. He had been the reason they had gone from picking off small sheep-men trading caravans to rolling over full Colonies. He had made their band important, had made them stand out from the tribes to the south. Had gotten them the attention of the damned Ravager King himself. Roach had been his favorite enforcer, even if she wasn't as experienced as some of the graybeards, or as big as some of the bully boys. She had been convinced that one day Deacon would be the new Ravager King, and he would put Roach at the head of one of his top War Bands.
Now all those dreams seemed so stupid, so far away. Like they came from the life of someone else, which now that she thought about it wasn't that far off from the truth.
After he had started listening to that snake Solomon, things had changed. They had stopped moving, started building a base. Deacon began to collect his 'samples,' as he liked to call them. Howlers and Plague-ys and sickly little Uninfected. He went from raiding Colonies to trading with them. Even taking on jobs from those shady Old World sheep-men. Eventually, the Colony 'Elders' (as they liked to call themselves) got their own corner of Deacon's base. Of her home.
That was around the time she started hearing talk about 'phase two.' She knew that talk had something to do with Deacon's samples, with those Colonist labs in the back of their base. With what had been in that needle.
With what was now running through her veins.
And she knew it had to do with that...she paused as she saw it sticking up from the mud, the bone white data drive that stood out so starkly against the creek's black muck. The thing that started this whole damned mess. What they had dug out of the dead underground Colony lab, what that shooter Sam had insisted on chasing after them for, what had consumed every last bit of Deacon's attention there at the end. It had destroyed Deacon and it had destroyed their War Band, and now it was all that she had left. Still half-delirious from the syringe, she had grabbed the thing and ran, as her home and everything else burned down around her. She didn't know what was on it, and she didn't know why she kept it, other than she knew it was important. She knew, somehow, that a lot of very dangerous people would kill for what was on that data drive, but instead of doing the smart thing — which was getting as far away from it as she possibly could — she kept it close. Maybe it was because she knew it had something to do with what was in that needle that Deacon had stuck her with. Maybe it was because a part of her knew that what was now flowing through her veins was something that those same people would kill her for too.
Whatever it was, it was important. And because of that, she was important. And that wasn't much, but it was all she had. She stuffed the drive back in her pack and cinched it shut, and with one final check to make sure she hadn't missed anything else, she stood up and turned toward the west. Her path was uphill from here, through woody and uneven ground. It led up and out of the valley, up along the creek. It would be tough going, that direction, but it was away from those ominous gunshots, away from the pair that was following her. She headed out, up the creek.
Roach smiled at that. Up the creek, she thought. Yep, that sounds about right.
She took deep breaths as she walked. She still didn't have the slightest idea where she was heading; she only knew she couldn't ever turn back. There was no longer anything for her to go back to.
4
Sam moved over the thick, green ground of the forest, following the thin game trail ahead. He ducked under a low-hanging tree branch, stepped around a tree root, carefully avoiding patches of dead twigs and dried leaves. He was on the hunt, and as such, he was being as quiet as he was able. Vincente, leaning casually against a tree to Sam's left, was quieter still. Of course, Vincente had one distinct advantage over Sam.
Vincente was dead.
I should probably be more concerned about that, Sam thought as he paused to crouch down and inspect a disturbed piece of brush.
He knew that Vincente wasn't really there. Still, the mere fact that he was seeing his dead friend anytime he happened to be alone — that he was having conversations with the phantom — well, it was worrying, but somehow not genuinely alarming.
At least I know he's not real. Sam consoled himself with that meager fact. He hadn't completely lost his mind.
Satisfied he still had his quarry's trail, Sam stood and continued the hunt. Worrying about his grasp on reality would be easier once he had some meat in his belly.
Abigail's going to be fine. You know that, right? Vincente said.
"I know," Sam said. "Who said I was worried about that?"
Who said? Imaginary Vincente took a bite of an imaginary apple, shaking his imaginary head. Who do you think you're talking to, Sam?
"Question of the day," Sam muttered.
What I mean is that I know you, Sammy. You don't have to lie. You don't have to be scared. You aren't alone.
"Of course not," Sam said. "I've got a hallucination of my dead friend following me around, and a half-dead monster back at my campsite. I'm positively full to the brim with boon-frickin-companions."
Sam heard the snap of breaking deadfall somewhere ahead of him, and he paused to listen. Only silence followed, and he kept moving.
Why do you think it is, Sam, Vincente asked, now sitting on a log ahead and off to Sam's right, that you only use the ‘M’ word with me? If that's what you think of her, why don't you just say it to her face? Get everything right out in the open.
"The ‘M’ word?" Sam said. "What, madness? Or do you mean manipulation? Oh, no, I know what the M word is: mistaken mental manifestation. Because that's what I seem to be arguing with right now."
Vincente was silent for a minute after that. Long enough that Sam, despite knowing he would only be staring at an empty branch, turned toward him.
The ghost just shrugged. I'm not responding to any of that, he said. Nevertheless, I think you know what I mean.
Of course he did. Monster. Reaper. "Maybe I just don't want to lose an arm," Sam said. "Do you know how strong she is? Of course you do, you're me."
Don't want to lose an arm, Vincente repeated to himself, nodding along with each word. Of course. I'm sure that's it.
Sam sighed in frustration. He checked the load in his rifle for what must have been the fifth time since he set out on the hunt. Just as there had been the previous four times, he had a full clip, and one in the chamber. "What do you want me to say? Of course she's not a monster. She's Abigail. But she is a Reaper. There's no dancing around that fact."
You don't have to convince me, Vincente said. I'm not even real.
Sam shifted the rifle in his grip, checked the fit of the silencer on the end of the barrel. Snug as ever. "You know," he said, "you're almost as frustrating to argue with as the real Vincente."
He could still hear the sounds of the explosions. First a single one, loud enough to set his ears ringing: the pressure wave rattling his sinuses, even from the other side of the ridge. Then the smaller, secondary explosions, one after the other, like God himself was doing a roll on a colossal bass drum. He’d heard that the first stage of grief in anyone was denial, but in those moments, just after it happened, Sam hadn't even gotten that. He knew, before he saw the bullets hit him, before he watched Deacon
’s base explode, that Vincente was gone.
Go, Sam. Find it. Finish the job.
Those words, Vincente's last, had greeted him every morning since. The first things he heard, taunting him even before he opened his eyes. Those words echoed endlessly inside his head as the ache of Vincente's loss tore at his heart.
He had been Sam's closest friend; the closest thing he’d had to family for most of his life. His parents, after all, where nothing more than half-remembered fragments of memories, he had been so young when they died. The Colony had shuffled him from one guardian to the next, but they each had their own concerns, and none of them amounted to more than glorified babysitters. But Vincente, not quite old enough to be a father to him, not quite young enough to be a brother...Vincente had been there for him.
And now he was dead.
You ever think that might be a part of why you've been so cold to Abby since? Vincente asked.
"Don't let her hear you call her that name," Sam said back reflexively. She hated being called Abby, for reasons he still didn't understand. "You'll be the one losing the arm."
Somehow, I doubt she'll be able to get a hold of me, Vincente said. She did come back, though, he added. You still haven't thanked her for that.
As usual, the ghost-Vincente was right. Though it had been weeks since the two of them destroyed Deacon's fortress, and weeks since they had begun their journey west, tracking down the data drive and the Ravager that ran off with it, they hadn't spoken about what had happened before she had left him. Since he had run her off.
They barely spoke at all these days. Not since Sam had watched her...harvest from the dead man, back at Mae's. Drinking the blood and spinal fluid or whatever it was that allowed her to heal. He shuddered at the memory of it.
That place had been burning down, too. Sam and Abigail seemed to have a knack for that sort of thing. Sam laughed to himself, even as he winced at how he had reacted to the sight.
To be fair, she had lied to him. She hadn't told him what she really was, despite all the time that they traveled together.
But can you really blame her, looking back on everything? Vincente said. The apparition was now walking at Sam's left, poking at various piles of leaves with a crooked stick he was carrying.
The answer was obviously no, but Sam didn't want to give the smug hallucination the satisfaction of saying it out loud. Sam had reacted...poorly to what he had witnessed, though he had known, even at the time, that she was only doing what she needed to survive. She had been shot, and the wound had been bad. Bad enough to kill a person. No, he corrected himself, enough to kill an Uninfected. Abigail wasn't an Uninfected, but she was just as much a person as him.
Still, it didn't take much to remind him how different they were. All he had to do was think of what he had done for her less than a day ago.
Back at the gas station, Abigail had been shot in the arm, just above the elbow. She had lost a lot of blood, and if she had been anyone else, she would have been dead before Sam had reached her. As it was, she wasn't far off. But she was a Reaper, and as such, had nearly miraculous healing capabilities. Her body could replace the blood it lost, somehow, as well as re-stitch the torn muscles and re-knit the broken bone. To do that, however, it needed the right fuel, the correct raw materials. The dead bandits had that fuel, within their bones and within their veins. Once she got that, she began to heal.
It wasn't hard to understand how, in the tales whispered around the campfires, Reapers were described as little different from the vampires in Old World entertainments.
I'd hold off on the ‘V’ word as well, while you're at it, Vincente said.
It was probably good advice. Sam had tried to hide the squeamishness he’d felt looking at the blood caked around Abigail's lips after her second feeding. The red of it faded nearly to brown, dried and cracking on the whites of her cheeks. He’d tried to focus on the very real elation and relief he felt in the fact that she was still alive, the wonder in seeing the coin-sized wound on her arm close itself and the bone snap back to straight before his eyes. But he hadn't done a good enough job at hiding, and he had seen the hurt and the rejection on her face when his eyes met hers.
He needed to figure out a way to make it up to her; a way to let her know that no matter what he had said before, he didn't care about their differences. He was just glad she was still here with him.
Why don't you just say that? Vincente asked.
"You know, it's creepy enough when you respond to my words, being dead and all," Sam said. "It's worse when you read my thoughts."
Vincente scoffed. Where do you think my words are coming from? Besides, maybe focus a little bit less on me, and a little more on who you're chasing after. This is starting to get embarrassing.
"Yeah, that's what I've been trying to do," Sam muttered. "I'm not the one who keeps wanting to talk about Abigail."
Sure you're not.
Sam ran a hand through his hair, trying to batten down his frustration. Ghost-Vincente tended to be quite a bit snarkier than the real Vincente had been. He did need to focus, and not only on this hunt. The Ravager, Roach, was still safely ahead of them, even if he and Abigail had been slowly closing the distance. Despite Roach's injuries, she had proven to be a surprisingly quick and resourceful quarry.
Abigail and Sam had both agreed the Ravager seemed to heading west, though as to why she was heading west they had no idea. For all they knew, Roach was leading them straight into a fresh nest of Ravagers, or into the teeth of some other terrible trap.
Abigail said they had left the most active of the Ravager territories days ago, yet Roach hadn't slowed down or changed direction. Sam thought back to those mysterious Colony soldiers housed at Deacon's base. What had they been doing there? What Colony were they from, even? Was that Colony Roach's destination? He had no idea, knowing only that he needed to catch her, needed to get back that data drive. Sam knew that whatever was on it was important, and that a lot of dangerous people wanted it. More than that, Vincente had told him to find it, had told him that finding it mattered. And so Sam would find it. He would complete the mission.
Ahead, Sam saw movement in one of the trees. It wasn't the deer he had been following, but it was better than nothing, and anyway he had already been gone from camp for too long. Abigail was injured, after all, and he didn't like the idea of her being by herself, no matter how capable she might normally be. He swung the rifle up and located the squirrel in his scope. He sighted it at about 300 yards.
It's not a pig this time, Vincente said, his imaginary voice a hush. That's going to be a much tougher shot than before.
And back then, Sam had still been a part of a Colony. He had had a home, and a mission, and someone to look out for him. But now Sam had let that person die, and he had failed his mission, and he had no way of getting in contact with his Colony. Not that they would be in any rush to welcome him back, considering the extent of Sam's failure. He sighed and tried to focus on the task at hand.
Pretty hard, I imagine, Vincente said. Keeping that aim steady. While you're carrying all that weight.
I'm the only one left to carry it, Sam thought. And I will, till I find that drive, and can finally go home again.
You know what they say about going home, Sam, Vincente said with a phantom smirk.
The squirrel darted one way a couple of steps, then turned, dashing back the length of the branch to the trunk of the tree. Sam took a long, shallow breath and held it. The squirrel scampered back the other way and leaped off the branch, aiming for another nearby.
"Well, then," Sam whispered, "it's a good thing that I'm a much better hunter now than I was then."
Sam squeezed the trigger and listened to the low thump of the silenced shot. Through the scope he watched as the round caught the squirrel in mid-jump and spun it sideways. He lowered the rifle as the squirrel fell to the ground.
Not a bad shot, Sam thought. He wasn't the naïve, sheltered kid he had been when he’d first left the walls o
f the Colony. He was smarter, tougher, more experienced. Better.
Maybe you are better than you were, Sammy, the voice said. I hope you are. I have a feeling you're going to need to be in the days ahead.
5
She spent a good while pretending to still be asleep, listening to Sam mill about and monkey with whatever he had brought back from his hunt, relishing the feel of the warm, reassuring heat of the fire on her back. Finally, Abigail marshaled up the courage to open her eyes. To turn back to the fire and Sam, and to let him know that she was awake. To let him know that the Reaper was still breathing. Sam spoke before she was able. "I know you're awake," he said. "It's your breathing. The rhythm is different when you're asleep."
Great, she thought, there goes the initiative. It struck her as a bit discouraging that she had backslid toward considering every conversation with Sam as a form of verbal combat. Two steps forward, three steps back. That ought to be my motto. At least she hadn't shot back with how easy it was to tell when he was asleep. Sam certainly didn't need to be reminded of the nightmares that had been plaguing him since the death of his friend.
She sat up and looked over the campsite. Sam had rigged up a trio of skinned squirrels on a stick over the fire. They had just begun to crackle in the heat. It was greasy, stringy meat, but it set her mouth to watering. "The bounty of the great hunter," she said, managing a weak smile.
Sam didn't seem to take her joke the way she intended. "I'm sorry if you were expecting bear. Or maybe a lion. Only one of us is an invincible killing machine, after all, and it sure isn't me."
"I'm not invincible," she muttered, too low for Sam's weak, Uninfected ears to hear. Louder, she added, "That's not what I meant." Strong, forceful reply, she thought, mentally rolling her eyes at her continued awkwardness and ineptitude. "I mean, it smells good. Thank you."
"Well...sure. It's food, after all. Hopefully, we'll catch up to that Ravager soon, and we can get something a little more civilized to eat." Sam looked suddenly uncomfortable, like he had misspoken. "Or at least something more substantial, in any case."