The Tangleroot Palace

by Marjorie Liu

  I cut him off. “That’s all they want.”

  He frowned but made no reply. Simply tilted his head, as though listening to something beyond us.

  “Where’s Steven?” he asked, suddenly.

  We stared at each other—and I stumbled to my feet, running toward the house. I called Steven’s name. He did not respond.

  My shotgun was on the table where I had left it. I grabbed the weapon and the fanny pack full of shells. Henry appeared in the doorway. I took one look at his face and knew.

  “He’s not here,” I said breathlessly, belting the ammunition around my waist.

  Henry’s expression darkened. He turned and disappeared. By the time I reached the porch, he was already at the gate. I followed, running hard down the driveway. Cats bounded alongside me.

  Henry glanced over his shoulder, eyes glinting red in the shadows. I almost slipped, went down—and he was there in a heartbeat, holding me up.

  “Steven must have gone home,” he hissed.

  “Why?” I asked, even as Henry dragged me to the gate. “Why would he do that?”

  “To warn our parents, to make certain the fence is locked. Just in case those creatures don’t follow us here. On his own, Dad always left the gate open at night. Steven and I were the ones who made certain it was shut.”

  “You should have told them the truth,” I muttered. “I should have.”

  “They wouldn’t have listened.” Instead of fumbling with the lock and chain, Henry climbed the fence, straddled the top—and reached down to pull me bodily over. I held the shotgun tight across my chest. Cats followed, over and under.

  I was ready when I hit the ground, my finger on the trigger. Listening for monsters in the dark. I heard nothing. Not a breath, or a cough, or the dragging slough of bellies on the road.

  We ran. Henry was faster than me, but I did not tire. Cats raced at my side. I lost count of them. They had never left the land before this night, and I did not know why, now, they came with me. The wind was soft. So was the night, and the light of stars behind the thin veil of gathering clouds. Henry was pale and his legs so quick—just a blur.

  I heard the screams a long time before we reached the farm. Henry made a strangled sound and burst ahead of me. I lost sight of him in moments. Somewhere distant, that dog was barking. I ran harder. I could hear the roar of my blood, and feel it pulsing like fire beneath my skin. My wrist throbbed. So did my fingers.

  I felt more heat when I finally saw the Bontrager farm. Real fire, licking the shadows, climbing wild up the side of the barn. Horses were screaming, and so were children. I could hear those young, shrill voices, and part of me kept waiting for them to cut out the same way Pete-Pete had, the same way I kept expecting my neighbor’s dog to stop barking, strangled and choking. Caught. Dead.

  The gate stood open. Blood pooled beside the road, trailing into a smear that covered the broken concrete toward the woods. I glanced at it but did not slow. Smoke cut across me, burning my eyes and lungs. I rubbed my tearing eyes, coughing, searching out those screaming children.

  Something large came at me. All I saw were the ragged remnants of clothes and a bloated white belly—but that was enough. I braced myself and fired the shotgun. The boom was thunderous, and I turned my face as hot blood sprayed across my body. Some got on my lips. I scrubbed my mouth with the back of my hand and skirted the writhing mass of white flesh bleeding out on the ground in front of me.

  I found the children behind the farmhouse, near the open doors of the storm cellar. Doors, blocked by creatures with curving spines and odd joints that kept them low on the ground, bellies and knuckles dragging. Others drifted near, but these were upright, closer in appearance to the men they’d been. Pale, puffy, with holes for eyes. Feces covered their naked bodies. I could smell it, even with the smoke.

  Rachel stood with her three little girls—sobbing, all of them—holding that ax in her shaking hands. Samuel lay in the dirt at her feet, bleeding from a head wound. He kept trying to stand, but his legs wouldn’t work. He looked dazed, terrified.

  But the creatures were not staring at them. Their focus was on Henry.

  He stood so still, barefoot in the dirt. Firelight made his face shimmer golden, and the red in his eyes was more animal than man. More demon than animal.

  “Come away,” he said to them. “Kill me first.”

  “And me,” I whispered, tightening my grip on the shotgun. “Don’t lose your chance.”

  The creatures hesitated, swaying—until one of them, upright and shaped like a man—made a low, rasping moan and looked straight at me. I knew that pitted gaze. I had stared into it that afternoon, and years before: that heavy, hungry gaze and that hungry, searching mouth. I gritted my teeth, gripping the gun so tight my fingers hurt.

  Finish what you started, I thought at the creature, and took a deliberate step back. You know you want to.

  I stepped away again, lowering the shotgun. Playing bait. Cats pressed against my legs, growling. Henry slid toward me, his hands open at his sides. Neither of us looked away from the creatures—monsters, once men—still men, trapped in those bodies, with those instincts that continued to be murderous and hateful.

  But I thought our distraction would work. I was certain of it. Until Rachel moved.

  It should have been nothing. She lowered the ax, so slowly: but the blade flashed in the firelight, and one of the creatures at the cellar door snapped its jaws at her. She flinched, crying out—and her little girls’ sobs broke into startled screams.

  Everything shifted, twisted—monsters, turning inward, toward them—all those glittering teeth and long fingernails, those bloated, rippling faces with those tongues that protruded from stinking mouths to lick the rotting edges. I never saw Henry move, but he suddenly stood between his mother and a sharp hand—his teeth even sharper as he leaned in and ripped out the throat of the creature. I ran to help him, cats swarming ahead of me, leaping on those awful bodies to tear at them with their claws. I heard screams—not human—and jammed my shotgun against a shit-encrusted stomach. I pulled the trigger.

  Blood drenched me, and guts. I didn’t look. I moved on, reaching into the fanny pack for shells. My hands were hot, slippery.

  I loaded the shotgun, glancing up in time to see Henry stand over his wounded father and punch his fist through a distended chest, his hand disappearing through broken ribs and emerging beside a curved spine. The creature screamed, flailing backward as blood poured from the wound. I heard a sucking sound as Henry yanked free. He stood there, so calm—and slowly, deliberately, licked his arm clean. I wondered if he knew what he was doing. His expression was monstrous—totally, utterly, merciless.

  And I didn’t care. I loved him for it.

  I turned, shotgun jammed against my shoulder, ready to fire. But the monsters were retreating, staggering toward the front gate. I ran after them, skidding on gravel, and shot one in the back. I tried to shoot another, but missed.

  Henry didn’t seem to notice. He knelt beside his father. Samuel could barely hold up his head, and his eyes were dazed, wild. I wondered how he had gone years without acknowledging that anything was wrong beyond the borders of his land, even when others in his community had warned him to be careful at night. His only excuse was those monsters—those changed men—had never been consistent. Weeks would go by without seeing one.

  I surveyed the yard. Nothing else seemed a threat. Cats sat in dirt, fur raised. Growls rumbled from their throats. Corpses everywhere, and the air stank. Rachel dragged her daughters close as she crouched beside Samuel, but she stared at Henry and not her husband.

  “You’re alive,” she whispered to him, and I could not tell if it was fear or wonder in her voice.

  He gave her a helpless look, marred by the blood around his mouth, on his clothing and his hands. “I’m not . . . ,” he began, and then stopped, looking past his mother,
at me. “I’m sorry I frightened you.”

  Rachel looked down. Samuel stirred, pushing weakly at Henry.

  “Get away,” he mumbled. “Oh, my God. Get away.”

  Henry stared at him and stood. I moved close, and when his hand sought mine, I gave it to him. Rachel saw, and looked at me, deep and long.

  “Steven, “I said. “Where is he?”

  “Gone,” Rachel replied softly, her face crumpled. “He’s gone. They took him first. He tried to fight, and they dragged him away. And then . . . they came for us.”

  I knew that some of her despair had nothing to do with her missing son. “Rachel. It’s not like before. It’s over.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” she whispered harshly, clutching her belly, finally meeting my gaze. “I recognized him. He might have . . . changed . . . but I know him.”

  Him. I leaned back, unable to break her gaze, unable to stop remembering her face, years ago, ravaged with cuts and bruises. Same as mine. Mirrors should have disappeared with the rest of technology. I had buried two of them behind my barn, unable to stand seeing my eyes every time I walked down the hall or entered my bedroom.

  “We’ll find him,” Henry said, tugging on my hand. “We’ll bring him—”

  He stopped before he said home, but Rachel gave him a sharp look. Samuel seemed barely conscious.

  “No,” said his mother, wrapping an arm around her daughters, all of whom clung to one another, weeping quietly. “No, don’t bring him here if you find him.”

  Henry’s jaw tightened. Rachel tore herself from her daughters and stood, staring up at her son, searching his eyes with cold resolve. “It doesn’t matter that I love you. It doesn’t matter that I would forgive you anything. There’s no place for you here. Any of you.” Rachel looked at me. “You won’t be free if you stay.”

  I touched my throat. Felt like it was too tight to breathe. I wanted to protest, fight, argue—but I couldn’t even speak. Rachel swayed, and turned away. Henry squeezed my hand. Stared at his mother.

  We left them. I could hear distant shouts, the sound of horses. Help, coming. The fire would be visible for miles. Even the nighttime reputation of this stretch of road wouldn’t be enough to stop the neighbors.

  Henry and I stood at the front gate, staring at the trail of blood that led into the woods.

  “He could be dead,” Henry said. “You should stay here.”

  I reloaded the shotgun. It took all my concentration. I wanted to say something brave, but couldn’t speak. So I looked at Henry, and he looked at me, and when I lifted my face to him, he kissed my cheek and then my mouth. Cats rubbed against our legs.

  We entered the woods.

  It had been three years. Maybe I expected snakes instead of vines, or razor blades in place of leaves, but everything that touched me was as it should be: a soft tickle of brush, the snag of thorns on my clothing and skin. I was almost blind in the darkness, and I was too loud. I crashed through the woods, clutching leaves and breaking branches, like a wounded creature, breath rasping. Henry moved in perfect silence, and only when he touched me did I know he was close.

  “I can smell my brother,” he whispered; and then: “I wish I’d had more time to explain.”

  “You had years.” I touched trees to keep from tripping. “Time runs out. When I saw you tonight, I couldn’t imagine how you had pretended for so long to be like everyone else. I don’t know how they were so blind not to see that you had changed.”

  “Easier to believe,” he said quietly. “Easier to pretend than face the truth. Even when I had you and Steven helping me adjust to my new . . . instincts . . . I kept thinking I could be something else. If I prayed hard enough, if I stayed with the old way.”

  My fingernails scraped bark, and I felt heat travel through my skin in my blood, simmering into quiet fire—a sensation similar to knowledge, the same that guided me with blessing fences.

  “The world is remaking itself,” I found myself saying. “Men die, forests swallow the cities and bones. And what remains . . . changes. Life always changes.”

  “Not like this,” Henry replied. “Not like us.”

  You’re wrong, I wanted to tell him, but heard a low, distant cough. All the calm I had been fighting for disappeared. I reached down, nearly blind, and cats trailed under my shaking hand.

  When we found the clearing, it didn’t matter that I couldn’t see well. I felt the open space, I looked up and saw stars, and my teeth began chattering. I gritted them together, trying to stop, but the chills that racked me were violent, sickening. Henry grabbed me around the waist and pressed his lips into my hair.

  “I’m here,” he murmured. “Think about what you told my mother. It’s different this time.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “I didn’t think I’d ever have to come back to this spot.”

  “It can’t be the same one.”

  I pushed Henry away. “I shouldn’t have visited you that night. I should have run and hid when I heard your mother screaming.”

  He froze. So did I. And then he moved again, reaching out, fingers grazing my arm. I staggered backward, clutching the shotgun to my chest.

  “Amanda,” he whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” I breathed, ashamed. “I’m so sorry I said that.”

  But even as I spoke, my throat burned, aching, and when I opened my mouth to draw in a breath, a sob cut free: soft, broken, cracking me open to the heart. I bent over, in such pain, shuddering so hard I could not breathe. Henry touched me. I squeezed my eyes, fighting for control. Not now. Not now.

  But my mouth opened and words vomited out, whispers, my voice croaking. “When they saw me, when they chased me into the woods, you and Steven shouldn’t have followed. You knew . . . you knew you were outnumbered, that they had weapons. If you had just stayed behind—”

  “No,” he said hoarsely, and then again, stronger: “No.”

  His hands wrapped around my waist, and then my chest, and he leaned over my body in a warm, unflinching embrace. His mouth pressed against my ear. “I couldn’t protect my mother, and I couldn’t protect you. But I had to try. Nothing else mattered.”

  I sensed movement on the other side of the clearing. Cats hissed. So did I, struggling to straighten. Henry let go, but stayed close.

  Bodies detached from the dense shadows, some on two feet, others crawling along the ground, bellies tearing the undergrowth. I raised the shotgun, but did not fire. One of them separated from the others: tall, bloated head, those black eyes.

  I knew him. Rachel had known him. She was right—there was something about the shape of his face, the lean of his body. Still the same. Still him. Leader of the pack.

  The woods were so quiet around us. A dull silence, like a muted bell. I expected to see a flash of light, or feel the old fire in my veins, but nothing happened. I expected to feel fear, too, but an odd calm stole over me—like magic, all my uncertainty melting into my hands holding the shotgun, down my legs into the soles of my feet. I took a deep breath and tasted clean air.

  I heard a muffled groan. Henry flinched. “Steven. Give him to us.”

  No one moved. I forced myself to take a step and then another, certain I would trip or freeze with fear. But I didn’t. I made it across the clearing, Henry and the cats close by my side, those small, sleek bodies crowding into the clearing like swift ghosts.

  I stopped in front of him. Just out of arm’s reach. That lipless mouth opened and closed, and his black eyes never blinked. I did not question why I could suddenly see him so clearly, as though light shone upon his rotting face.

  My finger tightened on the trigger. I let out my breath slowly. My heartbeat was loud. I could feel my pulse, my blood, bones beneath my skin. But I still did not fire, and the creature in front of me stared and stared, motionless. I tried to remember what he had looked like when he was still a man but that face was
a blur. Dead now. All of us had died a little, and become something new.

  I heard another groan. Henry strode past me. The creature in front of me never moved, though the others behind him swayed unsteadily.

  “Amanda,” Henry called out hoarsely.

  I tightened my grip on the shotgun, and sidled sideways, never taking my gaze from the leader, the once-man. A rasping growl rose from his throat, but that was the only threat; and none of the others came near me.

  Henry stood beside a massive tree, a giant with a girth that reminded me of a small mountain rising fat and rough from the earth. Roots curled, thick as my forearm—cradling a body.

  Steven. He was so pale, wasted—and bleeding. So much blood, dripping down his skin into the soil, as though he was feeding the tree. Maybe he was. I heard a sucking sound in the roots, and when Henry bent to pick up his brother, I grabbed his shoulder, stopping him.

  “Watch our backs,” I murmured, all the hairs on my neck standing up as I knelt beside Steven and set down my shotgun. The boy’s chest jerked with shallow rasping breaths, his fingers twitching in a similar rhythm. His wrist had been cut open, as had his chest and inner thigh. Cats sniffed his body, ears pressed flat.

  My palms tingled. I almost touched him, but stopped at the last minute and laid my hand against the tree. I didn’t know what I was doing, or why, but it felt right.

  Or not. A shock cut through me, like static on wool—but with more pain, deep inside my skull. I tried to pull away, but my muscles froze. And when I attempted to call for Henry, my throat locked.

  This is what you want, whispered a voice, reverberating from my brain to my bones. This is what you need.

  A torrent of images flashed through my mind: open human mouths screaming, echoing over stone streets bordered by towers made of steel and glass; men and women staggering, falling, slumped in stiff, decaying piles as blood and rotting juices flowed between the cracks in the road, or in grass, upon the roots of trees that grew in shady patches. Bodies, watering the earth.