Where the Dead Talk (20 page)

"What are you doing?"

"Don’t, don’t shoot him," she said.

He wrested his arm free and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell but the spark fizzled in the pan and didn’t ignite the powder.

We’re done for, he thought.

A figure in the center of the room suddenly stopped and arched its back, letting out a horrible cry, loud and gritty. Both arms raised, it twisted its head. The other bodies stopped and turned to him. The body next to the hearth stopped and turned, as well. In the silence, the figure in the middle of the room lowered its head and looked around, eyes gleaming.

For a moment, no one fired a shot.

Pomeroy looked around, but everyone else was busy reloading weapons, arms and hands frantic on the weapons. The figure in the middle of the room spoke – a long stream of harsh words, fast. The very sound of them terrified Pomeroy; old words, older than them, older than the village, older than the valley itself. When those horrible words ceased, he motioned with his arm – and the bodies suddenly streamed out the door, out the shattered front windows of the tavern. Even the ones who’d been shot – as if the lead had done nothing more than knock them off balance.

"No –" Carolyn said. She watched the nearest figure turn and hurry to the windows, clamber through the broken glass and frame. More bodies sped from the room. Another crawled across the ceiling, limbs churning like a huge spider, and slipped out the window.

"Careful," MacGuire said. He stood up next to his boys and held out a pistol, sweeping it back and forth across the room. No one moved. In an instant, it was just them, the demolished room heady with the rank scent of rotting flesh.

"What’s happened?" Brewster said.

The room was quiet, just the wind gusting through the shattered windows. Shoes scraped on the floor, staggering. Carrier had stood up. He moaned, holding his hands to his face.

"Careful," Pomeroy said.

Carrier lowered his hands and tried to speak. A spill of dark liquid hung in strings from the torn flesh in the front of his face. His tongue moved and his teeth – bloody and exposed – clattered.

"Oh," Carolyn said, holding a hand to her own face. The front of Carrier's face was gone, bitten off – the lips, the flesh on his chin, the tip of his nose. He moaned again and tried to speak, but all that came out were damp sibilants and groans. He held his hands back up to his face, looking first at the fingers, then running them over the ruin of his face. His eyes looked strange.

"They got him," Pomeroy said.

Before they could do anything about it, Carrier stumbled forward, running headlong into one of the upright beams with a terrible crashing thud. He straightened himself, looked around. He reached down and grabbed one of the muskets that had fallen, held it by the barrel and began bashing himself over the head with it.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

The moan he made was the worst sound Pomeroy had ever heard. The man knew exactly what was happening to him, what he was doing. Still, he hit himself.

"Would somebody please –" Pomeroy said.

The musket boomed, four feet in back of Carrier. MacGuire. The back of Carrier's head shattered, much of it flying forward and splattering on the floor. His body crumpled as the musket he'd been using dropped.

"Jesus save us," MacGuire said.

"Bit late for some," Pomeroy said.

Outside the windows, the wind began to howl.

Making It To The Dawn

Jude and Carolyn got Pomeroy up. The bandages at the bottom of his leg were soaked with blood.

"Can you stand?" Jude said.

Pomeroy grimaced.

"I can lean," he said. He steadied himself against the wall. Nearer to the windows, Morrill looked out into the night.

"They’s gone," he said, "heading across the green."

"We fought them off," MacGuire said.

"I wouldn’t be so sure about that," Pomeroy said.

"They run out, didn’t they?"

"You don’t see what bloody happened, do you?" Pomeroy said. He held up an empty shot sack. "Another few minutes and we’d have had nothing left."

"Don’t matter, as long as they run off."

"Really – I hate to spoil the moment, but you’ve all just missed the point entirely."

He limped forward and gazed at the window.

"What do you mean, Major?" Jude said.

"That one in the middle – you all saw what he did."

"The one who yelled?"

"Very good, yes. The one who yelled. The one who spoke. The one who ordered them all out – and the one they all listened to."

He looked around the dark room at the faces staring at him.

"They’re communicating and giving orders," he said. "Worse still, they’re working together with more coordination than we are. Does that spell it out clearly enough – or do I need to go on and tell you all what that means for our chances of making it to the dawn?"

A cold wave of air rolled in from outside. Jude stepped between two of the overturned tables to the window and saw that Morrill was right. More dark shapes crossed to the green, shadows curled on the moonlit road.

"They’re heading for the church," Morrill said.

His words sounded too loud. Jude suddenly wanted to clamp his hand over his mouth, so he wouldn’t make a sound. Morrill must have felt it too, because he started looking all around, and took two small steps back from the window.

"Right, then," Pomeroy began in back of them, "we’d better find a –"

Jude held his hand back, palm towards him.

"Major," he said.

Pomeroy stopped talking, and looked up towards them. The floor of the tavern rumbled and there was a sudden howling roar, carrying the sounds of breaking wood.

"What is that?" Pomeroy said. The wind inside the tavern began to swirl, gusting in from the broken windows and door. Morrill leaned out the window, careful of the long shards of glass that still hung in the frame. He pulled back in and shook his head. He ran to the doorway – stepping over the fallen door – and went out into the street. He turned and stopped after just a few steps.

"Zeke, what is it?" Jude said.

Morrill didn’t say anything, just stared north with his eyes wide and his jaw hanging open.

"Get back," Jude said. He didn’t even need to see what Morrill was looking at. He could feel it. He felt it in the skin on the back of his neck, in the tightening of his gut and shoulders. He turned to the others.

"MacGuire, have your boys reload all the guns," he said. "Quickly."

Jude went to the door and ran out into the wind. It was freezing, cold as deep winter. Leaves flew past. Morrill pointed. A shadow rolled towards them, crossing the Salem road. It towered into the night sky, higher than the steeple on the church, higher than the tallest chestnut or oak in the village. It was coursed through with streaks of shifting colors. As it moved forward, trees shuddered then snapped – even the large chestnut next to the green, a tree that was four feet across. It cracked with a sound like a clap of thunder. Leaves and branches spun in the air as the great crown of the tree crashed to the ground. From within the shadow, a sickly light shone, rising up into the sky above.

"What in the hell is that?" Morrill shouted.

Jude didn’t take his eyes from the approaching shadow. It was coming quickly towards them, towards the tavern.

"Back inside," he said.

He reached forward and grabbed a handful of Morrill’s collar and gave him a tug.

"Hurry," he said.

The air around them shook. Jude followed him back to the door. Morrill stepped in, but Jude paused. He turned to face the approaching shadow once more. It was like looking into the pit of Hell – a picture worse than any that the Reverend had ever painted to his small parish. Then he noticed the figure at the bottom of the shadow, gaunt and terrible. Long hair swirled around the head, tight skin wrapped over bones and the skull around the sunken eyes. The skin of the figure's neck hung open in a rude flap, dry looking, leather. The eyes turned to Jude and a thin arm extended to him.

"Brewster," Morrill shouted from the doorway.

Jude ripped his eyes away from the shadow. His skin tingled and he was dizzy. In the green across from the tavern, a crowd stood – the bodies that had fled the tavern. They cowered before the towering shadow, before the thin figure at its base. Beyond them, horses galloped in panic, their screams carried on the wind.

"I – " he started, dazed.

"Get inside," Morrill said. He took two steps back out and grabbed Jude by the elbow, then pulled with a sharp tug. Jude shook his head back and forth to clear it. He tried to follow Morrill back inside. His first few steps were weak – his legs threatened to buckle beneath him. They stepped over the fallen door and into the common room. Jude was having trouble catching his breath.

"We can’t stay here," Morrill said in response to the looks that everyone gave him. "Is there a cellar?"

He turned around to Jude. Of course there is – but he suddenly found that forming words was impossible. He fell to his knees, and all he could think about were the colors.

"Jude," Elizabeth said. She ran across the room to him.

"What happened to him?" Pomeroy said.

"Everyone go," Morrill said, raising his voice, "we need to get away from the street."

"Carolyn, get everyone to the cellar, now," Pomeroy said, his voice loud but not panicked.

"I have to get home. My parents –"

"Now!" he yelled.

The wind gusted and the tavern shuddered, oak beams groaning. Scraps of glass blew in and skittered across the floor. Upstairs, more windows blew in. The wind screamed in through them. Pomeroy slid to the edge of the chair he was on, getting his good leg underneath him.

"Boy, come here," he said to MacGuire’s older son, "help me up."

The boy looked at his father.

"Go on and help him. Quick," MacGuire said.

Pomeroy got his arm across the boy’s shoulder and started to stand up.

"There we go. Easy," he said. They started hobbling towards the kitchen. A sickly light shone through the window openings, falling in on the broken room. The tavern shook. Morrill and MacGuire got on either side of the tavernkeep, lifting him by the arms and dragging him. A fear like he’d never known rolled over Pomeroy. Something was moving outside the windows in the light, something large. They burst into the kitchen, Pomeroy hopping on his good leg and clamping his jaw against the leaden pain in his bad one. The stable in back of the tavern was lit up with the strange color. The shadow of the tavern itself stretched out across the ground, and the trees behind the stable were battered by the wind, their branches whipping and turning. The boy with the lantern ran ahead and got to the door.

"Carolyn," Pomeroy said, moving aside. He waived his arm. She gave him a quick glance then hurried past him. One of the windows cracked.

"What’s taking them so bloody long?" Pomeroy said. He was looking back to the doorway to the common room. The others still hadn’t reached the kitchen, though their shadows danced against the near wall. Carolyn disappeared down the stairs. Pomeroy glanced back toward the common room again, then turned.

"Let's go," he told the boy.

He grit his teeth as he hopped forward, leaning heavily on the boy. There was a deep groan, loud enough to be heard over the howling wind. The ceiling shifted and bits of wood and plaster dropped all around them, dust filling the air. The rest of the window panes snapped and flew out. Suddenly the light flared up, bright enough to throw their shadows stark against the cellar doorway and wall. The boy turned and started down the stairs, jumping down them rather than taking them one at a time. Pomeroy turned. Someone ran at him.

"Down!"

It was MacGuire, though Pomeroy could only tell by the voice as the light was so blinding. Pomeroy turned and then felt hands on his back, pushing. He fell. As he crashed into Morrill’s boy, light from the kitchen flared impossibly bright. The whole building shook. With a tremendous ripping and tearing of timbers, it all came down. A board hit him in the head and he tumbled down into the cellar. He fell in a painful tangle, the hard wood steps smacking his face and ribs. The pain in his leg exploded, washing out everything else.

Above them, everything fell sideways and crashed down with the loudest sound he’d ever heard.

You Have To Fix It

Nashoonon pulled his horse up just before the wooden bridge that crossed the Shawsheen River. His legs ached and his backside was numb and each step of his exhausted horse brought a spike of pain to his head. He’d ridden through the night.

Almost there.

He spurred the horse on. Its steps were loud on the planks. Below the bridge, the waters murmured slow and clear. He didn’t pay attention to the dead following him. They’d started just after he’d left, faint shadows moving through the trees, sometimes trailing along the rutted wagon trail. He heard them first, a distant call or a whisper only feet behind. The voices grew, sometimes circling around behind him, sending a cold ripple down his spine. Turning to look only gave a glimpse of a figure, then it would be gone. Looking directly didn’t reveal much, perhaps only an area a shade deeper than the darkening land, or a shadow that could be a shifting evergreen branch. After a time, the cries and sobs and curses blended into the background. In the growing light they were fading, some little more than a drifting shadow, a whiff of smoke. He felt no threat from them. They rarely paid any particular attention to him, as far as he could tell. It was more as if they were simply stuck to him, attached with an invisible cord that sometimes grew long, sometimes shorter.

The road forked after the bridge, and he reined his horse to the south. From there, he would cut east at the Salem Road and head to Pannalancet’s cabin. Each step forward drove the truth of his vision home. It was in the air, in the darkness of West Bradhill, on the silent roads. The sky began to brighten, the slant of early morning light cutting through the trees. He passed a few houses that sat between the road and the river. All their windows were dark. Their barns were closed and noiseless.