Through The Valley

by Yates, B. D.

  Roy didn't have to elaborate on what would happen if one were to fail his test. His grim face and unwavering eyes, rigid as a burial vault behind the black handprint, seemed to scream at Emmit that he would be killed. But he would also be killed wandering alone and confused through the woods, where he would die of exposure or one of the living dead would finish the job.

  "I won't fail," Emmit said, trying to sound brave but his voice cracking. A drop of sweat slowly trickled down his forehead.

  Roy stood, his knees cracking like two monstrous rawhide whips. He gestured for Emmit to stand as well, then scooped up the blanket and wrapped it around Emmit's shoulders. He patted him on his back like a father leading his son to bed, except the friendly pat didn't make Emmit feel any sense of warmth and belonging. It felt obscene, sending goosebumps up and down his body. Those same hands might be used to kill him soon.

  "Keep the blanket," Roy said. "We're going back outside."

  Full dark had fallen upon the enigmatic forest and there was no silvery disc of moon in the sky to provide any light. As Emmit crunched through the snow, following the colossal shape of Roy in front of him, he looked up towards the sky to see if he could at least see any stars. He saw nothing but black, and felt the sensation of hanging upside down over a deep, dark ocean.

  "Moonless nights," he said, hoping to strike up a conversation to ease some of the uncomfortable tension he felt. "They say a moonless night sank the Titanic."

  Roy glanced back over his shoulder, his beard fluttering in the cold wind as he shoved dead branches out of his way.

  "I'd blame the iceberg and recklessness," he said humorlessly. "There's never a moon here. It's like it's not even there, even on a clear night with no weather. You can see a few stars sometimes, but not always. It's like they move around. Actually, when you can see the stars, it’s quite a sight."

  There was a sharp snap as he broke a branch the thickness of Emmit's arms in half and tucked it under his arm. Emmit jumped.

  God damn it Emmit, man up a little bit.

  "Where exactly are we?" He asked, pulling the blanket tighter around him. The trees above them moaned like melancholy ghosts, their dead branches clattering together and raining fine mists of snow and ice down upon their heads.

  "Later," Roy said gruffly, "after the test."

  They walked on in silence, Roy seemingly calm and content while Emmit fidgeted and adjusted his glasses. Every time he saw movement in the dark, he was certain it would be a grinning, freeze dried corpse, stumbling out of the underbrush to clutch at him and perhaps put another mark or two on his flesh. But on that night, they never saw any; none that were roaming nearby, anyway. The pure, unfiltered dark of space seemed like it could hold an eternity of secrets.

  It felt like time had stopped moving when Roy finally spoke again, his deep voice reverberating off the trees.

  "We're coming up to a small shed out here. I fashioned a little lock for it, but it's not a bank vault. I've never been able to find any metal here to work with, so everything has to be wood, rock, and clothing salvaged from the dead ones. This is our food storage, and no one is allowed inside it but me and the Provider. Anyone else so much as looks at the door, and they get put down. Understand?"

  Emmit swallowed hard.

  "Loud and clear," he said, trying not to show Roy how terrified he really was.

  "Good. The test is tied to a tree behind the shed."

  Emmit suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to run. Run away, into the trees as fast as his legs could carry him. He had a blanket now, that was better than nothing. Maybe if he ran far enough and fast enough, he would find a park ranger or a highway or something.

  Or you'll find another swarm of those smiling ghouls. And this time you won't have Grizzly Adams here to save you.

  His muscles were flooding with adrenaline as his brain ordered him to run, but he kept on walking, keeping his eyes on the stitches that crisscrossed Roy's back. He held his breath as the big man stepped around the corner and disappeared, and then jogged to catch up with him.

  As Roy had promised, his test was there, lashed to a thick tree trunk. As the men approached, the creature lifted its head from its chest, beaming at them regardless of the wooden spikes that had been driven through its midsection and plunged into the frozen ground.

  "Stand in front of it," Roy said severely, pointing at the zombie with the thick branch he had broken off. As Emmit stepped slowly forward, he couldn't help but notice that Roy now held the branch like a club.

  God, if you're real and you're there and you can hear me... please help me.

  The thing had once been an old scrawny man with a patchy horseshoe of curly hair clinging to the back of its dappled scalp. It was dressed in nothing more than a thin green hospital gown, and as the wind fluttered and flapped it away from its gaunt body Emmit spied the shriveled stump of its penis, tenuously clinging to a tuft of pubic hair like it was about two wind gusts from falling off. Two giant wooden pikes had been driven through the struggling corpse in an overlapping X shape, penetrating it just under the rib cage and exiting the other side where they held it firmly to the ground like a giant staple. Its arms and legs were lashed to the tree with more lengths of the multicolored rope Emmit had seen holding the SURVIVOR CAMP sign. The corpse struggled to move, its desiccated lips parting in a sleepy smile that revealed black and toothless gums. The rope carved deep gashes into the leathery flesh of its wrists, sawing all the way down to the bone.

  "I know you're a criminal," Roy said, and held his hands up to shush Emmit as he opened his mouth to defend himself. "I know, I know, you don't remember. But I know you did something."

  "How do you know?"

  Roy shrugged casually.

  "Because we're all criminals here. Everyone who comes to this place, man, woman, or child, has done something wrong. The Links, they all just... know. I don't have an explanation for that, so don't ask. But they know, and they're never wrong."

  Emmit thought back to his first encounter with the Link creatures, when they had called him a "thief" and a "robber". If what Roy was saying was true, then maybe he didn't want his memory back. In his present state of mind, he didn't feel like he would have the balls to steal a pack of gum from a gas station, let alone commit robbery. If Roy was right, then it also meant that, if his ears had not deceived him amid all the chaos of the attack, Roy was a murderer for hire.

  "Thieefffffff," the old corpse crooned, struggling against the ropes and pikes that held it. There was a small crunching pop as one of its fragile ribs disintegrated, and the frail body slumped forward.

  "Well, I guess I'm a thief," Emmit said with a slight hint of defiant sarcasm, looking to Roy to see if he was satisfied. The big man did not move.

  "Yeah, I heard as much when they swarmed you. Sometimes they have to warm up a little. No pun intended," Roy said, but his face remained emotionless.

  "If everyone here is a criminal, why does it matter what I've done?" Emmit countered, trying to ignore the unblinking stare of the smiling old man corpse. The cataracted eyes made his skin crawl.

  "Robberrrrrrr..." it answered him, and managed a small, dusty sounding chuckle from its destroyed abdomen.

  "We don't allow rapists, child murderers or pedophiles in our camp. If a Link calls one out, we cave their heads in on the spot." Consciously or not, he gestured with the branch he had brought.

  Emmit had nothing to say to that brutal response, and nothing could be done but to stand in place and wait for the corpse to judge him thoroughly. Savage as Roy's rule sounded, Emmit was inclined to agree with him. He wouldn't want to share a one room cabin with someone like that either.

  I may not remember much about who I am, he thought to himself, clenching his fists under the chilled blanket, but I know I'm no rapist and I know I'm no fucking pedophile.

  "Baaaank... baaaank robberrrrr," the corpse continued, swaying slightly on its wobbly knees. It seemed overjoyed to be in the predicament it was in, even as the winter w
ind exposed the wreck of its cock again and again and again. Emmit made himself stand up straight, puffing out what little chest he had, and stared right into the milky eyes of the old man. They were dead but horrifically alive and alert, like dying stars deep in their dark sockets.

  "Robbed a bank? No offense kid, but that doesn't sound like something you could have pulled off," Roy said, and now he did have the ghost of a smile on his face. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about trying it myself once or twice."

  Emmit shrugged nonchalantly, his face sagging with fatigue. His brain felt like an overworked engine, and he imagined a silly image of himself powering down like a defective android with smoke pouring out of his ears. He couldn't take much more.

  "I guess I did, if this thing says I did. But I honestly don't know Roy."

  "It'll come back with time," Roy said wearily. "It's not always pleasant when it does either. Come on, I'm satisfied. Baldy here doesn't seem to have anything on you."

  Emmit hadn't realized how tensed his body had been until he heard those words, and felt himself relax with a long, vaporous sigh. Roy was already heading back to the cabin, now using the branch as a walking stick. His boots thudded in the snow like small meteorites striking the earth in succession.

  "Let's get back. Now that we know you're alright, we like to sit down over dinner and try to walk you through the situation you've landed in."

  Emmit smiled at that, the first genuine smile he'd worn in what felt like a century. Finally, his exhausted brain might get some answers. He felt like he'd walked into a theater right in the middle of some strange foreign film and was trying to decipher the plot.

  The old man's corpse droned on behind them as they left it alone in the dark, its voice beginning to sound like the distant buzz of a cicada on a summer evening.

  * * *

  "Alright," Roy said, handing Emmit a small wooden plate. It looked like it had once been a simple slab of wood, but someone had sanded an egg-shaped groove down into the center of it to form a crude bowl. There was a cut of well-cooked meat on the plate, and Emmit's stomach began to churn and roar as soon as the smell reached his nostrils. There were four other men huddled around the fireplace, their hunched bodies silhouetted against the fire as they roasted hunks of meat with sharpened sticks. Emmit could hear them muttering, glancing over their shoulders at him as they spoke. It almost looked like they were wearing matching uniforms with Roy; everyone wore the strange multicolored patchwork clothing, held together with oversized stitching.

  Just like first grade.

  There was no silverware, so Emmit just grabbed the hunk of meat with his fingers. It smelled like a pork chop, the skin slightly charred and splitting apart with clear juice running out and forming a puddle in the bottom of the bowl. Emmit sank his teeth into the meat and the hot juices squirted into his mouth, burning the tip of his tongue. The pain barely registered. It did taste just like a moist and tender pork chop; it was a little bland without any seasonings but given the situation, it was about the most delicious thing Emmit had ever tasted in his life. He wolfed the rest of it down in two giant bites, his cheeks bulging with chewed meat as he lifted the bowl to his mouth and drank the juice.

  "Easy, champ. We have to ration all our food here. Next time you might want to slow down and enjoy it a little," said Roy, his words slurred by his own mouthful of meat. Emmit shrugged and they chuckled together as he patted his flat stomach.

  "I couldn't help myself, man," Emmit said, blushing slightly as he wiped off his chin. "I feel like I almost starved to death. You guys must be pretty damn good hunters if you managed to hunt a wild boar with no guns."

  For some reason, a couple of the men huddled around the fire found this hilarious, laughing heartily and sounding to Emmit like a crew of salty old pirates, perhaps discussing making this new landlubber on their ship walk the plank.

  The warm air inside the tiny cabin was full of the rich smell of cooking meat. Emmit took a moment to look around at his surroundings as the other man finished roasting their dinner and came to sit in a circle on the floor around him, joking and laughing with one another as they tore into their chops. He had never gone to summer camp or joined the scouts as a kid (it had been much too expensive for him to do very many extracurriculars) but now he imagined it was a lot like this, although much less terrifying. Summer camps and overnights in the woods, those were back in the real world, where dead people didn't get up and move.

  The fire filled the cramped room with a flickering orange glow, casting their shadows across the walls and floor. They melded together into one shape like a fence composed of darkness, giving the bare walls (which were made of simple cut logs with the cracks in between packed with what looked like mud and tatters of clothing) a decidedly creepy look. There were no windows, and the crooked fireplace and stone chimney looked dilapidated and hastily built, yet somehow sturdy. There was a warped shelf mounted above the fireplace, supported by several smaller logs that formed triangles on its underside, and on top of it was a small wooden cup filled with twigs. Toothpicks, Emmit thought.

  Emmit was impressed that Roy had been able to build the little cabin out of absolutely nothing, probably making his own tools before construction had even started. It was rustic and kind of charming in its own way. But knowing what was prowling the woods outside and feeling the uncomfortable closeness of all these strange, cackling men around him, men whom Roy himself had branded as criminals, made Emmit feel suffocated and claustrophobic. He was trapped. It was death outside, but strangling to be confined inside. The cabin would keep him sheltered and alive, but it also felt wrong. Haunted somehow. It was like shacking up in a mausoleum.

  Roy finished eating and then tapped his wooden bowl against the floorboards four times, the sharp sound commanding attention like a judge's gavel. The other men stopped talking and looked to him obediently as if they were his dogs, eagerly awaiting orders.

  "We're going to bring our newcomer here up to speed, men. You all remember what it was like when you arrived. His memory hasn't come back yet, but he passed the initiation and I vouch that he's clean."

  "What did the Link accuse him of?" Said a handsome black man, and Emmit recognized him as the owner of the smooth, intelligent voice he had heard earlier. His hair and beard were growing shaggy and unkept, but his square jaws and dark, piercing eyes made him striking, nonetheless. The black man steepled his fingers and brought them to his chin as he listened attentively. Emmit noticed a deep scar gouged into the flesh of his left cheek, a short straight slash, like a Roman numeral I.

  "He's a bank robber," Roy replied mellowly, as if telling him nothing more exciting than what Emmit did for a living. There were a few poorly disguised chuckles from the other men. Emmit smirked.

  Yeah, I know, he thought. A scrawny little guy like me robbing a bank. Hardee-har.

  "I don't remember doing it and I don't remember why, but... I guess I had a good reason," Emmit said.

  "It'll come," Roy said reassuringly. "Now I need you to prepare yourself, because what you're about to hear won't be easy to process."

  Emmit nodded, repositioning his body to sit Indian-style and lacing his shaking fingers together. He felt like a sick man at the oncologist's office, about to be told that the cancer was terminal and inoperable. He began to clench his jaw and swallow repeatedly, a nervous tick he had had for as long as he could remember. He tried to prepare for the blow.

  Roy gestured to the small crowd of men.

  "We all have our theories about where we are, but none of us knows for sure. Personally, I believe we've passed into another dimension. A tear in the fabric of time, or something like that."

  Emmit could only stare at him naïvely.

  "I'll give you an example. Who is the current president from your time?"

  Emmit had to strain his brain to remember who was currently occupying the White House. Again, he saw the image of the oily gears locked in place, grinding against each other in a vain effort to move. Ima
ges finally began to surface like pieces of shipwreck debris in a cloudy sea: the president is a man... he is overweight... he is not highly intelligent...

  He envisioned an orange-skinned man with pursed lips and hair that looked like bleached cotton candy, and then it came to him as if someone had flipped a light switch inside his skull.

  "Trump," he said doubtfully. Then he nodded and repeated himself with more certainty. "Yeah. Donald Trump."

  The other men, Roy included, erupted with uproarious laughter.

  "The guy that fires everybody?!" Squealed a balding man who sported a small tuft of gray hair in an infantile cowlick on the center of his scalp. His right arm was folded against his chest like a featherless bird wing. It looked horribly misshapen, zig-zagged like it had once been badly broken and not set properly. The fingers on that hand hung limp and useless. "You're fired!" As he threw his head back to laugh, Emmit saw that the man had a maximum of two teeth left, and at least one of those was seconds away from falling out. This man had two marks on his left cheek, resembling an 11.

  "It's hard to believe," Emmit said, staring at the man's Jack O’ Lantern mouth, "but I remember that much. He was impeached, but they didn't convict him."

  Roy wiped tears from his eyes.

  "Oh, thank you for that," he said, his deep voice sounding like the whine of a whimpering wolf. "But when I arrived here, the president was Bill Clinton."

  Emmit was stunned. He could remember Clinton and his wife, his sleepy sounding voice and tired eyes, and the famous blowjob scandal of course. But he hadn't been in office since 2001.

  "You've been here for nineteen years?" Emmit asked Roy, unable to comprehend the thought of anyone spending two decades in this hellish place. He had been here for a matter of hours and it had already felt like an eternity, and he was certain that once he remembered everything that had been wiped from his brain, the need to get back to normalcy would be agonizing. "Do you know about 9/11? Or COVID-19?"

  "COVID-19?" The handsome black man asked, looking confused. "Is that some kind of a weapon?"