The Beautiful Dead (24 page)

The sight of
it breaks my mood. In fact, it make me angry. I understand on some level why a
person might find me repulsing … but plants?

“Here,” John
says, plucking another fruit from the tree. “Put this in our bag. We’ll need to
bring back as much as we can.”

And before I
can stop him, he’s tossed the fruit to me. The moment it lands in my palms, it
begins to rot before our eyes. John watches as the poor thing wrinkles,
collapses like a deflated balloon, then drops to the gritty ground as though it
were suddenly seven months expired.

The. Only.
One. Left. To. Blame …

After a
moment, I whisper, “Sorry.”

“No, it’s
okay.” He’s staring at the rotted thing on the ground. “It’s okay. It’s alright.”

We’re both
still staring. It’s not okay. It’s not alright.

“Why does
everything I touch die?” I stare at my hands like I have the magic power of
death in them. “The Undead… We repel life, like opposite poles on a magnet. I
was told that once by a friend. It seems true, so …” I look up at John. “Why
don’t I repel you?”

“Who says you
don’t?” he responds with a crooked smile, I think at an awkward attempt for
humor.

But I’m not
laughing. “Why doesn’t my touch kill you, John? By all rights it should.”

“I’m not the
only Human you’ve touched.”

That much is
true. Megan and the others I saved from the Necropolis … Though, after being
freed, they certainly didn’t take their time to bolt. But then again, we
were
being chased down by nightmarish skeletons …

And then
suddenly he’s in front of me, placing the fruit into the bag himself, so close.
I hold my tongue, filled with doubts and frustration as I am, and let him fill
the bag with beautiful things my touch will destroy.

“You’ve
anything but killed me,” he says with a firmness in his tone. “And now if you
don’t mind, my camp is on the other side of this lake.”

I gawk. “We’re
already here?”

“Like I said,
getting here was the easy part.” He gazes over the water, squinting in the dry
morning air. “They should be awake by now.”

Just like
that. Circling the perimeter of the unmoving lake, we enter another thicket of
trees—only most of them dead—then pass into a brief clearing just beyond the
lake’s reach. Ahead of us, there is what appears to be a clustered wall of dead
branches and stones piled high enough to mask what lies beyond. A small opening
grants access, toward which John and I cautiously approach.

When we pass
through it, an array of tents is sprawled out, but no person is in sight. As
though activities were abandoned mid-activity—a kettle of water sitting above
an extinguished fire, a half-sewn shirt left on a chair—the camp seems
otherwise vacant.

“John,” I
whisper, but he hushes me right away, his eyes scanning the encampment warily.

“STAY WHERE
YOU ARE!”

I spin around,
my eyes eagerly pursuing the source of that voice. John puts a hand on me as if
to protect me—or keep me from bolting, I can’t tell—and then he calls out,
“I’ve returned! I have food! Chief, come out!”

For a while,
nothing happens. I’m convinced the camp is occupied by bodiless ghosts. Then,
one by one, heads surface. From the top of the wall, from the sides of tents,
from the backsides of trees emerge girls in aprons, mothers, cooks, tinkers,
craftsmen and boys.

And they’re
all armed with deadly weapons.

“ARE YOU
TURNED!”

I peer about,
again seeking the person who’s shouting. John responds in a normal voice this
time. “No. Want to hear my heart? It still rages on, as you know it to.”

There’s a
zipping sound like a small airplane, and then an arrow is lodged in my chest.

“Ouch,” I say.
“That was rude.”

I pull it out,
toss it to the ground.

From
everywhere, others begin to emerge. They are armed with swords and giant
hammers. At seeing how I handled their little arrow, or perhaps noting that it
drew no blood, the alarm in everyone’s eyes has all but tripled. I’m one of the
forbidden Them, they’ve all realized. I’m a Crypter. An Abomination. It’s been
confirmed.

“Do we chop it
up??” a man with an axe calls out.

“Chain her
down!” screams a cook from the back, stretching her dress to hide two little
boys. “Chain her down and throw her into the lake!”

“Burn it! Tie
it up and burn it!”

John calls out
once again, trying to get this chief guy to show his face, but I’m already
plenty fed up with these rude Humans. I mean really, you don’t have to have a
pulse to show a little damn decency.

“You can try
all those things,” I explain nicely, “but as it turns out, I’m pretty much
unkillable, so it’d be a waste of resources and energy. Is that a stew?” I add,
pointing at the boiling kettle.

Another arrow
cuts through the air, goes right over my head so close it may have given me a
trim.

I huff and
holler out, “It’s no use! You’d sooner lay a hundred arrows in me, I’ll still
be standing, just a bit less pretty. And it just so happens, we all have a much
bigger problem on our hands!”

Then, to the
apparent, panicked disapproval of several ladies at the far edge of camp,
someone rushes toward us.

It is Megan.

“Winter!” she
cries out halfway toward me. “This is Winter, the one who saved me! This is her!
She’s alive!!”

“Not exactly,”
I mumble.

But she’s
crashed into me with a hug that vice grips would covet, and all my words are
null. Her head buried in my chest, her arms gripping, I look up apologetically
at the jaw-dropped archers, unable to talk.

“It’s true!”
Megan pulls away from me to exclaim. “She freed me! She freed Hanson and his
wife, and the twins and Laney and Judas, and—and she led us all to safety. You
can’t hurt her! Nothing can! She’s immortal!”

I look from
face to Human face, doubting her words are inspiring any more comfort in these
people than mine did. But then, of the archers, two slowly lower their bows.
“It’s true,” says one. “She got us out.”

“It was her,”
a woman admits, only her head poked out from a small green tent. “It was her
who saved us, at her own expense. I was there.”

Then from
another tent, a man emerges. He looks like any of them, dressed no differently,
but as he approaches he commands everyone’s attention. His solid jaw is furry
and broad, his eyes fierce and powerful. I don’t need any hint … This man must
be the chief.

“Give me a
good reason why I shouldn’t order my men to pull you apart and bury you,” he says,
coming to a stop several feet before me. The way he speaks—his every word like
a stone block in the pavement of his sentence.

“For one, you
can’t,” I tell him with more attitude than I should—though to be honest, I’m
not confident I could stop them from doing exactly that. “And secondly, and
perhaps more importantly, my intention is not simply to outrun the Deathless.
My intention is to destroy them.”

“Deathless?”
he says, squinting at me. His eyes flick between John and I. “That’s what you
call them? Hmm … You’re the one responsible for saving a number of us.”

“Barely,” I confess.

“You are not
like those creatures we hunt. Deathless.”

“No,” I agree
distastefully. “And they are now hunting me, it turns out.”

The chief
flinches, his jaw hardened. I worry he’ll command his men to tear me apart anyway.

Instead, he
turns on John with a scowling glare. “And you, the prodigal dog, tail tucked in
your legs. Have you told your friend that you’re a coward and a thief?”

“This is my
home,” John answers in a near growl. “And my tail is not
tucked
. And I am
no thief.”

“You stole
precious supplies and fled in the night. Thought you’d make it well on your
own, did you?”

“Our resources
are thin.” John stands tall, facing his people. “I came upon a place long ago
occupied by our people, now claimed by the Undead. I mistakenly assumed there
would be food and supply in this place … this city. They call it Trenton.”

The whole of
John’s journey is piecing together before my eyes as if I’d never all along
bothered to see his side.

He goes on. “But
the Undead that live there, they do not eat. Even their taverns held nothing
real, not a speck anywhere. This woman you see, she kept me in her home,
protected me and fed me. She is the reason I’m still alive. I owe her my life.
Many of you do too.”

I look down, a
smile trying to happen on my face. Hearing the usually-brash-and-hard-edged
John speak about me like that, it’s almost embarrassing how it flatters me. I’m
sure if I were capable, I’d be blushing hardcore.

“After many
months, she had to depart on an errand of sorts, and in her absence, they found
me. I was quickly brought before their so-called mayor … and it was then that I
learned who he was.”

The chief’s
expression hardens.

“Their mayor
is the Speaking Death. Their mayor is the one who destroyed our first camp. Their
mayor is the one who took my parents.”

All trace of
flattery and happiness drops from my face instantly. I stare at John in horror.

The chief
takes a few steps toward him, studying his eyes for a good, hard while. Then he
says, “You sure?”

“The Undead
can mask a lot,” John admits. “I’ve learned it. They reconstruct themselves to
appear alive. These Undead of Trenton, they are not the same as the Crypters we
know. And they are being governed by a false idol. An evil idol. They are as
innocent as Winter, as charmed as snakes in a wicker basket.”

“But snakes
nonetheless.” The chief grunts, flicks his cold eyes at me. “And now you’ve
brought this—” He hesitates, unsure what to call me. “Woman,” he finally decides.
I can tell it took everything in him to call me that simple, dignified word.
“You have doomed us all, bringing her here. The Dead will soon follow.”

“We will
destroy them too. Don’t you see, chief? That is why I left. I was seeking a new
life for us. A true home. Something better than a camp … Something real and
true and alive.”

“Garden does not
exist,” states the chief, getting to the point. “And you’re a damn fool, John. Your
Garden is a fantasy … A story we tell children of this new, dead world, but you
and I are no longer children.”

“We tell it to
keep hope alive,” he presses, “because in this world, so little still is. Is it
such a crime to believe in hope as a man?”

Despite the
arguing, I see a change in the chief’s eyes. He may seem a stubborn fool
himself, but at least he listens. The chief turns his head, appraising the
faces of others in the camp who so desperately, who so hungrily hang onto every
word of this exchange. The dream is alive in all their eyes, even I can tell
that much.

And so the
chief at last turns his gaze onto me. He doesn’t know what to say for a while.
Maybe he can’t say a thing just yet.

So I do. “By
all means, it would make more sense to run. We’re outnumbered. You’re killable,
they are not. They’re led by a King who wants my head, and they have a Warlock
among them who can turn me and my kind into dust with the flinch of a finger.
But a life in hiding is no life.”

The people
listen. Even Megan, her fierce, young face tensed with concentration. The kids
of this camp, they’ve all grown up too fast, hardened too soon. What childhood
has this terrible world given them?

“Warlocks, you
say.”

“Yes.” I look
at John importantly. He returns my stare with a hardened one of his own.

At last, the
chief speaks with what I dare call respect. “So tell us, dead woman of Winter.
What must we do?”

The entire
camp waits. All of them, every single man, woman and child, from the chief to
the girl to John at my side. Their faces filled from mouth to temple with great
despair and a speck of hope. I don’t care if I never know my life, dead now and
always, I won’t let them lose theirs.

I will never
again taste of an apple, or fear, or love. Unlike them, I know what there is to
lose … for these people, these beautiful living.

“Steel,” I finally
say, a quiet answer. “Gather all the steel you have.”

C H A P T E R – S E V E N T E E N

How do you
kill something unkillable?

“Well,” I
reluctantly begin to tell the couple of young boys who asked, “what you can’t
kill, you can in a way incapacitate. We need legs to walk and arms to wield
weapons, don’t we?”

“And eyes to
see,” one of them agrees.

“And teeth to
feed,” the other chimes in.

“Except we
don’t,” I assure them. “At least, my kind don’t feed. Their kind, on the other
hand—” And I stop, remembering a taste of Human that once rested on my own
tongue. A terrible, terrible pang of guilt courses through me before I decide
to revise the course of this dialogue. “Just go for the legs. Chop off their
legs.”

Passing
through the camp, I join John by the anvil where, along with about seven other
men and women, weapons are being forged in an effort to steel ourselves
(literally) for the impending battle to retake Trenton.

“And they
can’t be burned,” John is in the middle of telling one of the other men, his
face scowled and hard. “I witnessed it myself. One of them, his arm completely
set ablaze. It’s like even fire wouldn’t dare touch him.”

“Nothing
natural can,” a lady murmurs, her eyes darkened by soot and lack of sleep or
nutrition, I reckon. “Neither water nor fire.”

“Makes bathing
a tricky effort,” I add with a smile.

The group of
tinkers glance at me, none of them much lightened by my attempt at humor. The
way John looks at me is, thankfully, the least contemptuous, but among his kind
I can tell where his ultimate loyalty lies. I wonder, after the sacking of
Trenton, will he still stand by my side, or watch me crumble with the
Deathless?

Somewhere else
in the camp, I’m drawn into a circle of chatty children, all of them wide-eyed
and eager to have their questions about the Undead answered. Some questions I
can’t even answer myself. Like, how does my kind just rise from the ground at
our creation? Where do we come from? Surely the Undead, when they were once
alive, didn’t all die in the same place, buried in the same field, to one day
in the future come back half-alive. Also, how does more than just bone remain
after hundreds of years of being buried and decaying? By my own admission, many
I’ve seen and heard to be Raised were done so with plenty of flesh still
intact.

“I never gave
it much thought,” I admit. “I just figure there’s some kind of magic to it. How
else can I explain my existence any better than you can explain yours?”

“What keeps
you alive if you don’t breathe or eat?”

It’s a little
boy who asks, and I just reply, “What keeps you alive when you do?”

“Oxygen and
nutrition,” he says.

I return his
answer with a blank stare.

Separated from
the children, the ever-focused Megan is stringing bracelets in a neighboring tent.
I sit next to her and admire her work.

“Steel,” she
mutters. “Armlets of protection for the young.” She doesn’t pull her eyes away
from the one she’s working on. Young, she says, as if she herself isn’t. “You
survived the Necropolis with just a little ring, so …”

I squeeze my
fist, feeling it press against my fingers. “One day, you won’t need any
protecting. You’ll be free from the worst of my kind, forever.”

“I believe in
Garden, like John,” she tells me, reaching for another fistful of steel beads.
“No one may know where it is, but I know it’s out there. There’s grass taller
than the trees, and trees taller even still. Flowers and fruit and even animals
grow strong. I’ll never stop searching.”

“It’s a waste
of time.”

Megan and I
turn to the voice. The chief has appeared at the entrance to the tent, his arms
hanging like an ape’s and his eyes narrowed.

“I don’t think
so,” Megan says back. “Some here at camp even claim to have been there, to have
seen it for themselves. I know it’s out there. It has to be.”

“They’re
liars, dreamers,” says the chief. “We will not survive if we depend on a fantasy
of some living, thriving place that doesn’t exist. Adapt to this world or let
it end you. Grow as a weed grows, despite all odds … Even as all else refuses
to take root, we must. The world is dead. Learn it, or die by it.”

She has no
reaction to that, just beading the steel bracelet in her little hands as though
he hadn’t uttered a word.

“If I could
only remember one little part of my life,” I tell the two of them, “I think it
would be simply a color. Green. How so very green everything must’ve been, back
when the world was … whatever it was.”

The chief
studies my expression for a while, the sound of Megan’s patient bracelet-making
the only other thing in the tent. Then he simply announces, “We leave at next
sunrise,” and departs.

I watch Megan,
her determined glower. Quietly, I lean into her side and whisper, “I believe in
Garden.”

Without
looking up from her work, she just smiles.

The sun is
falling already on a long day of preparation, and after what feels like hours
of working independently, John and I finally regroup at the entrance of the
campsite. The woods stretch out before us, a lake somewhere beyond, and a captured
city even further on. The world feels so very small, no matter how much of it I
know is out there. Despite all the oceans and continents and cities I can’t
imagine that exist on this dying planet, the only thing in my sight is Trenton,
the little city I used to call home … and the vile thieves that took it from
us.

“It won’t be
easy, but it is possible,” I tell John.

He shrugs,
picks at something on the wall he leans against. “This may end in our
extinction.”

“Or mine,” I
agree lightly.

“The whole planet’s
going,” he mutters. “It’s just the next natural step for us … to go with it,
fallen to a greater power. It is just painful, the dark humor of it all—being
killed by the dead.”

“Everyone’s
going to sleep.” I peer over my shoulder, catch sight of wisps of smoke from a
campfire recently put out. “I wish you could see fire as I see fire.”

“We depart in
the morning for Trenton, and will take a route through the Haunted Waste.” He
nods at me. “The place you call the Whispers, Harvesting Grounds, whatever.
That will be the easiest way, toward the gates that are least guarded.” He
chuckles. “They won’t be expecting an army of Humans. All their foolish
weaponry and scare tactics … Their Locks have no power over us.”

“Why didn’t
you tell me about the mayor?” I try not to sound too touchy.

“After my time
observing Trenton, I think he plays both sides,” John tells me. “All I know is,
he’s ridden with the Deathless before, and he’s ended many, many lives. He
might be working with that Deathless King lady, his goal all along to surrender
Trenton to her will. Or maybe he’s trying to take it for himself. Selfish and
evil.”

“I could pull
him apart and send him through the grinder myself, had I the chance.” I glare
at the sky, a perpetual silver burn. Right now, the sky looks more steel than
silver. “What if I were still alive, John?”

“What do you
mean?”

“I mean, what
if I’d never died? What if I was just another member of this camp, living and
breathing and all? What if I was one of you?”

“You already
are.”

“I still don’t
think your people trust me, not totally. They look at me as though I were made
of fire and brimstone. Like I’m some messenger from hell.”

“They listen
to their fear, no matter what they see, no matter what they’re told.” He looks
at me, his eyes heavy and firm. “It’s kept them alive this long.”

“I wonder if I
listened to my fear when I was alive. I think I listen to my fear more now that
I’m dead.”

And then
John’s got a hand on my shoulder and a finger to his lips—reminding me exactly
of the moment we shared in the tavern—and he’s all perked up, having heard
something. Listening to his fears, I suppose.

Then I hear it
too. Crunching, snapping in the woods. With the blatant scarcity of wildlife in
this world, any sound in the woods is significant and deadly.

For one
terrible moment I think:
They’ve found us. I led the Deathless here, to the
camp. I’ve killed all the Humans.

Then Jasmine
appears in the thicket.

“Jasmine!” I
cry out, rushing toward her like a little girl reuniting with her long-lost
aunt. Really, it’s only been a day or two, but maybe a part of me worried I’d
never see my friends from Trenton again. “You’re alive!”

“As I’ll ever
be, my rabbit,” she agrees heavily.

I pull away.
“What’s wrong?”

“Everything.”
Her eyes fall on John, all the tension in her face releasing. “Oh, how I’ve
longed to see you in the flesh … I can feel your warmth from here, young man!
You’re a true miracle, to survive on this wretched land, so far from home. It’s
my dearest pleasure to meet you.”

“You’re
Jasmine,” he concludes. “The gatherer from across the road.”

“Yes, the one
who kept you fed, the one and only.”

I interject
with a sudden concern. “Jasmine … How’d you find us?”

“We Undead are
drawn toward one another. It’s perhaps how you found your way back to Trenton
after breaking free from the Deathless city. Sadly, it’s also how the Deathless
found ours, I suspect.” She looks away for a short moment. “Nearly the moment
you left, when all went to chaos in Trenton, I’d made my own escape from the
south gates … It wasn’t difficult to find you.”

“I’m glad you
did, but—does that mean—”

“No, they are
not following.” Jasmine sighs, her entire face telling the whole of what she’s
about to say, her slumped shoulders, the grief in her eyes. “Winter, I’m so
sorry to tell you this, but the Deathless King has taken over Trenton and has
made an offer for your head. For every passing hour that you are not returned,
an Undead is turned to dust. Already before I’d left, two existences were
ended. Hilda was one of them.”

Hilda, the
proud maker of dresses. One of the first friendly faces I’d met. The last time
I saw her, she was gaping scandalously at the sight of my flesh-ridden forearm.
The fact that I haven’t had a better last moment with her, that I’ll never have
another moment with her again …

I cling to my
shirt like a child … Even the thing I’m wearing now is one of hers.

“Grimsky is
there,” she goes on, and I look up. “He’s at the Town Square alongside the
King. I’m afraid his … I’m afraid his eyes were removed.”

“Removed??” I
manage to blurt out, almost too overcome with what I’m hearing to make
sentences. “They’ve punished him for helping me. It’s my fault.”

“He’s made his
own choices too, my rabbit.” She puts a calming hand on my shoulder, but I pull
away. My brain is just a bunch of noise right now—the world is furious and
confusing suddenly. “And it’s not just Grimsky there. He also has a
metal-legged man with him. I believe he is the executioner of sorts, though I
don’t see a weapon.”

“He is a
Warlock,” I tell her matter-of-factly. “Did you know they exist? So endless,
the list of surprising things in this world. I wonder what’s next … Goblins and
trolls and bridge tolls.”

“The Judge
sent me to find you,” Jasmine explains, inspiring a snarl from me at the
mention of her, “but not to turn you in. Winter, we need to end the Deathless
reign once and for all, and you hold the key.”

“How does she
reckon that?” I ask acidly.

“She didn’t
say directly. Just mentioned something about what you did to the army in the
Harvesting Grounds. Does that … ring a bell?”

Yes, of course
it does. The whole lot of them bowed before me like I was their queen. All I’d
done was lifted a sword and commanded them to leave us alone. If it weren’t for
the dwarf interrupting, I could’ve led them into a choreographed musical number
for all I know.

But I’d rather
have torn off their heads. “Yeah, it rings a bell. But I don’t know what I did,
or if I can do it again. Or more importantly, why they did what they did.”

Jasmine just
stares at me. So does John. Of course, neither of them were there, they have no
idea.

“Is there
anything else I need to know?” I ask coldly.

“No.”

The three of
us stand in silence for a while. I’m taking in all that I’ve heard. It’s such
an effort in times like these not to just pull out your hair or pull off your
face and run. And the fact that I could painlessly pull out my hair or off my
face and survive is unsettling. The burden of this Second Life … even without
knowledge of my First Life. It takes every bead of focus in my body to stay
stoic, to appear strong, to not let my friends know that I am, within, a
tumultuous storm of angst that can level a forest. It’s so tempting to just
unleash it, watch it burn.

“I know what I
have to do,” I tell no one in particular. Staring at some stray blade of grass
in the ground, some strong little thing daring to be alive in this ugly world,
I say, “We cannot invade Trenton. They will capture the Humans and they will
eat them. I’m turning myself in.”