Through The Valley

by Yates, B. D.

  "...a newcomer whose ass I saved and whose stomach I filled? And just who did that to his face? Did he do that to himself like Jim fucking Carrey?"

  He released Emmit's chin, leaving a dim ache behind, and seized Emmit's hands. He spotted Emmit's busted hand and held it up as if Emmit might never have seen it before. The fingers were lifeless and limp. Defenseless.

  "I suppose you did that jerking off in the corner over there."

  He let it fall to Emmit's side like a dead salmon dangling from a hook.

  Emmit felt a gentle squeeze on his emaciated bicep from the Reverend and it helped to quell the last of his fear, dispelling it like a priest casting a handful of wayward ghosts out of the dusty halls of some old manor house. Emmit stared Roy directly in his eyes, burning like twin headlamps in the darkness of the handprint that tarnished his face.

  "Roy," he said, breathing easy and keeping his voice as steady as he could manage.

  Take what's coming. He's not going to kill you. Take what's coming and live to escape later. Live to find the light. Live to see Deacon.

  "What."

  "I'm sorry about Muddy. Take that however you want to take it, but I am. I liked him. Someone has to pay for his death. I will pay for his death."

  Roy's face shifted slightly into an expression of surprise and a hint of... was that respect? He nodded and clicked his tongue again, sizing Emmit up.

  "Muddy was a little soft upstairs but he was a good man," Roy said, his voice croaky and heavy. "And you are going to pay."

  He turned his back, stooping and sliding one hand down inside his right boot. When he pulled it out, there was a shiny black object laced between his fingers.

  "We're going to mark him," Roy said without turning around. Emmit was immediately forced to his knees, Pup and the Rev pressing down on his shoulders while tapping the backs of his legs with their feet. Emmit didn't fight them; he went with ease, but he also refused to let his eyes drop. He stared at the tangled mass of hair spilling like a waterfall from the back of Roy's head, waiting for him to turn and show him what special gift he had removed from his boot.

  Mark me. He's going to mark me.

  It was then, waiting for his punishment for a crime he hadn't committed, that Emmit thought of the Roman numeral gouges in the faces of the Rev and Muddy. One in the cheek of the Rev, two in Muddy's face. That had to be what marking was; a way to punish your precious human supply without killing them. A scarlet letter to label those who had committed sins. Both of them had crossed Roy at some point and had paid the price he was about to pay.

  Jesus Christ, this is going to hurt like hell.

  He was sweating. He could feel it running down his face in fat drops and he hated the weakness it implied, but there was no stopping it. His heart began to pitter-patter like nervous feet, his breaths swift and sharp. Roy was going to lacerate his face and there was nothing he could do about it. If he fought him, he would kill him.

  The broken spear head...

  Emmit could feel that it was still there, pressing tantalizingly into his skin, but that was no good. If he went for it, he would be dead before he could wrestle it out of his clothes. No, it was better to save it for a rainy day, if it ever got any more dire than this. If it could get any more dire than this.

  Whispering, barely audible, from a soft and smooth voice above him. He cocked his head toward the Rev, who was squeezing his shoulder with rhythmic reassurance.

  "It's sharp. Don't hurt that bad. He does it quick. Just take it. Don't fight him. Just take it."

  Emmit nodded, ever so slightly, as Roy turned and extended his hand. In his palm was a small black triangle, about the size of a shot glass. It looked slick and oily, like tar that had hardened into a glossy, rocky glass. It had been sharpened; the edges drawn down into a deadly sharp wedge that looked like a shark's tooth. Emmit's eyes traced every dip and groove that Roy's tools had left as he had honed it. The edges were not smooth like a butcher knife would be; they were cracked and serrated, more like a steak knife. Roy moved his fingers adroitly, spinning the inky blade until he could wield it like a pencil.

  "This," Roy said, turning the blade from side to side so that the firelight could waver across its surface, "is obsidian... I think. Obsidian is a volcanic rock, I know that much, and I've never seen any volcanoes around here. But I have seen enough to know that time doesn't flow quite right here, so who knows? Maybe I built this cabin right in the middle of an old crater. Anyway, I found this while I was digging for stones. I thought to myself, 'don't some surgeons use obsidian in their scalpels?' I think they do because it's actually sharper and smoother than surgical steel. It doesn't cause as much... trauma."

  Emmit's heart was like a caged animal, slamming against the horizontal bars of his rib cage. His teeth were clenched tight, his panting breaths whispering through the tiny gaps and spaces like miniature steam vents. His glasses were beginning to fog over as they crept down his nose, slowly veiling Roy's obsidian razor. Emmit was glad for that.

  He didn't know which was worse— seeing the small black rock that Roy was about to mangle his face with up close or seeing (and hearing) Roy present it to him as calmly and as mundanely as a bored museum tour guide showing a fossil to a crowd of restless grade schoolers. It was nothing to him. Just another day at the office. Just another naughty employee to be reprimanded. Soon enough, it no longer mattered which was worse. Roy's boots were thudding closer. The Rev and Pup were holding him tighter, hard enough to send bolts of arthritis-like pain all the way down to his bones.

  Roy grabbed his chin again.

  "For Muddy," Roy said, his voice growing hungry and impatient, "for betrayal, for assaulting another member of this camp. I mark you."

  It didn't hurt at first. All Emmit could really feel was pressure, something pressing into his face just above his left cheekbone and sliding rapidly down to the quivering corner of his mouth. He had just enough time to crazily think to himself, it really is that sharp. There's no pain at all.

  Then he felt the pain. It was like a hot coal had been buried beneath the flesh of his cheek, searing heat radiating out from the fresh cut and wrapping around his head and neck like the claw of a phoenix. Immediately his face felt much too large on one side, like his cheek had become a fat blob of wax oozing down the side of a candle. Then came the sticky rivulets of blood, the heat of it nearly indistinguishable from the heat of the wound itself. The folds of his layered shirts soaked it up and grew heavy with it, clinging to his feverish skin as his nostrils filled with the smell of iron.

  He hadn't even realized that he was screaming.

  All at once, the men let go of his arms and he crumpled forward, reflexively bringing both hands to the raw valley of flesh on his face and gingerly covering it. His body writhed, wracked with pain, and his eyes unleashed a flood of stinging tears that only served to heighten the burning. He didn't want to cry anymore, not because of shame but because it made his face move, made the muscles work and flex. His face developed a pulsating heartbeat of its own, a meaty thudding that seemed to resonate all the way to the roots of his teeth.

  He felt cold air wash up his back as the door was opened and closed. Poke coming to watch, he thought absently. Coming to observe the fruits of all the pain he had allowed Emmit to cause him. Fine, he nearly sobbed aloud, let him watch. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore except for getting out of here alive.

  His racing thoughts turned to Muddy, Muddy who had died screaming out there in the enemy woods, swamped and dogpiled by beaming corpses. He had been screaming. What had his agony felt like? The toxic pain of the corpses' touch was familiar to Emmit now, and Muddy had endured that acidic corrosion on every inch of exposed skin. Compared to that, this new beauty mark was nothing. A paper cut. A hangnail. Somewhere out there in the dark, Muddy was one of them. Human beef jerky. A Link, staggering around with the soiled idiot masses of them, existing and not existing at the same time. Yes, this was bad. But Muddy had had it much, much worse. That
helped him cope with the pain, as it always seemed to. Someone always had it worse.

  Emmit felt his black and grimy hands pulled away from his face, and he fought the urge to swing wildly at whoever had dared to touch him again. He was glad that he didn't attack— it was the voice of the Rev that came from the watery and distorted silhouette that crouched over him. He felt a bitingly cold wetness press against his face.

  God that feels so good, thank you so much, that feels so much better, I wish I could give you my heart and soul for that because it feels so much fucking better—

  His hands flew to the miraculous balm, mashing it against the wound. It felt like an old shirt or maybe a sock, filled with snow and ice. The river of lava that had begun to flow from his temple to his collarbone instantly began to numb.

  "This helps," said the Rev, his smooth voice quivering with pity. "I know, brother."

  "Thank you," Emmit said feebly, and curled into a ball.

  He wasn't sure how much time had passed before he heard Roy's boisterous voice again, only now, that voice was more like a bad song being played on the radio for the fourth or fifth time in as many hours— a song you hated more and more with each repetitive loop.

  "Dinner time, fellas," Roy said cheerily. "Who's hungry?"

  Chapter 9: The New Provider

  The next two weeks passed agonizingly slow without much excitement to speed them along. The men occupied themselves with menial chores like chopping firewood (a grueling task that had to be done with a blunt, clumsy stone axe) and going on patrols around the perimeter of the camp. Roy and Poke usually made the daily rounds, only finding a Link to put down every few days or so. Sometimes they brought back clothing that hadn't been soiled too badly, like heavy winter coats and work boots.

  Emmit took every chance he could to keep ice and snow pressed against his face, which was still puffy and tender and beginning to itch maddeningly as the healing process started. No infection had taken hold, which had surprised him. The blade Roy had marked him with had been moldering in his boot for who knew how long, and he hadn't bothered to sterilize it first. That got Emmit thinking about the conspicuous lack of animals in this strange wilderness. Perhaps bacteria and viruses were absent too, so no wound ever got infected? Again, he felt unease tickling its familiar path up his spine. There were no animals, and yet they were eating meat almost every night.

  What was that title they kept saying my first night here? The Provider? Roy never had to be the Provider, that's what Poke said, right?

  He opted to banish that line of thinking from his sore and weary head. It was too much to try to sort out on top of everything else, and with each passing year-long day there was room in his mind for little more than his son. He knew, distantly, that he was simply running away from something that made him feel uncomfortable. He allowed himself to. He didn't have the strength for another problem right now.

  And no matter what it is, we're starving.

  He cursed himself for thinking such a thing and being okay with it, then shook the thought out of his head. Roy obviously cared a great deal about keeping his team of survivors alive, and his new facial scar was proof. Surely that couldn't be what they were eating. No. They were not eating human flesh. Most likely Roy had a secret farm or pig pen or something, constructed far away in another clandestine part of the woods. A place he kept secret from the rest of them like his shed behind the cabin. The Provider was probably the person Roy selected to learn the location of the farm, and the Provider would be given the job of slaughtering an animal. Nobody wanted to do it because it was probably a long and dangerous trek to reach it. Emmit had never heard any squeals or moos or anything of the sort, and in the stillness, loud sounds like that would carry. It was probably miles away, perhaps to discourage starving criminals from sneaking off to get some meat of their own.

  Yeah. That's gotta be what it is. Don't be crazy.

  But it didn't feel crazy at all. It felt wrong, and it irritated his brain like an itch he couldn't quite scratch. Trying to explain where their food supply was coming from felt more like he was playing a part in a movie; reciting lines and thinking thoughts that he was supposed to say and think. In his gut, he was certain that he knew the truth. He just wasn't sure if he could face it.

  Emmit swung the axe down and split a log of dead wood in half with a heavy chunk, the two halves tumbling away from each other as the vibration buzzed through his hands and resonated up the strained and quivering muscles in his arms. With each exertion, his face moaned.

  He had developed a pattern when he was made to chop the wood. After three or four solid whacks, he would pause chopping, rest the crude axe against his small pile, and arch his back to try to stretch the aches and pains out. His spine snapped and popped like a line of firecrackers each time he did. He would then remove his glasses, using the lenses as a makeshift mirror, and squint at himself.

  He didn't know why he repeated the same mantra of checking his face; nothing was changing fast enough for him to notice. He did notice, however, that he was beginning to bulk up slightly despite the lack of food in the camp. He was also sporting a dark and patchy beard now, which only made the itching worse.

  He had laughed at himself once as he gazed at the gouge in his cheek, the reddish lips of sliced flesh barely held together with fresh scabbing and dried blood. Abruptly, the wavy curtains of cut skin had made him think of a vagina, which had led him to dub himself "Vaginaface". He envisioned himself as some sort of comedic gangster in a spoof porno movie, only instead of twin handguns he was armed with twin dildos that he held by the rubber balls. Oh, the bullies of his youth would have broken ribs from laughing at that one. Pup and the Rev had glanced up from their own work, casting concerned looks to each other as Emmit cackled like a madman. He didn't mind. Here, in this place, your mind could be a movie theater if you wanted it to be. It was all he had, and he had learned to laugh at his own misfortunes at an incredibly young age.

  Things had been surprisingly chill with Roy. The big man didn't go out of his way to speak to Emmit, but when he did speak to him (to tell him his job duties, tell him it was time to eat, other supervisory scolding) he was neither sinister nor amiable. They were just two men talking, and as far as Roy seemed concerned, Emmit had paid his price, and all was forgiven now. Emmit couldn't understand how Roy could speak to people he had tortured, see the smudgy smoothness of the scar tissue he had left behind, and not feel any guilt. Then again, if Roy had been a hitman in his old time, he probably didn't feel much of anything for anyone he hurt.

  Poke had been careful to steer clear of him, but that wasn't much of a feat because Roy had been keeping him on a short leash. He would either assign them jobs that required them to separate, or he would plod over to Poke with weapons in his hands and take him off on excursions into the woods. That was what they had been doing for the past three or four days, and where they had gone this morning as the other men started work. Off into the white forest with spears and clubs like a father and son, without telling anyone else what they were doing.

  Yeah, well we all know what's in that forest. I think I'll stay here and chop wood, thank you.

  The Links seemed to keep their distance, almost as if they were respecting the boundaries of the camp. Occasionally Emmit would catch a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye and look up to see one or two of them, shuffling slowly through the foliage and smiling quietly as they went about their dead men’s agendas. He had spent an entire afternoon (at least he felt like it had been an afternoon, but it was hard to keep track of time) watching one of them, a thirty-something mummy who had been dressed in a shredded gray NIKE hoodie and tattered, mud-stiffened jeans. The thing had stumbled out of the trees and then stopped, clawing lazily at the air and leaning backwards as if trying to watch a plane fly over. Then it had apparently entered shut down mode; it stood there, motionless, for hours. It was a creepy sight, watching small drifts of snow beginning to collect around the Link's ankles as it... hibernated
? Slept? Did they sleep? It was the same eerie stillness of a person in a casket—no human being should ever be so still.

  Well, it's definitely asleep now.

  Roy and Poke had returned from one of their day jaunts and caved its head in without it even noticing. Emmit had heard the whack and seen the fine maroon mist jettison from the end of Roy's club, even from hundreds of yards away. The thing was still there, now nothing more than a hump in the flowing powder.

  Emmit gave his lower back one more noisy stretch and reached for his axe, mentally preparing himself for more pain and shock to come. When he rose to start swinging, the Rev was standing before him. His hair and beard were studded with glistening beads of sweat and cradled in his arms was a hollow log "bucket" that was filled with a mound of ice and snow. He sat it down heavily, grunting with the effort, then straightened up and dragged the back of his hand across his forehead.

  "Lord have mercy," he said, this time wiping sweat from his eyes with his palm. Emmit's eyes were drawn to the Rev's matching scar on his cheek, set into the flesh of his face like a dark zipper. "Strange how it can be so hot and so cold at the same time."

  Emmit observed wisps of steam curling off the Rev's weary body. Off behind him, Pup was supposed to be patching holes in the side of the cabin with sticky mud and a pile of old, unusable clothing. Instead, he was leaning against the wall, staring up at the clear blue sky and busily cracking his knuckles.

  "Right? I was just thinking of how we never get sick," Emmit said, grabbing a handful of clean snow from the bucket and stuffing it into his mouth. "Nothing gets infected."

  The Rev seemed to ponder this for a moment, then shrugged and nodded.

  "That's true," he said. "I guess there's nothing alive in this place but us."

  There was an awkward silence as Emmit waited to hear what the Rev had come to say. He scooped up another handful of snow, packed it into an egg shape, and hissed quietly as he touched it to his tender wound. The Rev watched him, his throat working and his eyes shining wetly.