Almost Alive (The Beautiful Dead Book 3) (23 page)

“Steel,” I mutter, playing with John’s steel ring that still spins on my finger. “Winter Steel, you can call me. Why not.” My eyes wander to the stage where John waits patiently, talking to Brains and Collin. They seem to be chatting lightly, casually, the three of them with smiles. Further down the stage, the little Lock still sits, brooding, locked in his own web of dark thoughts, I suppose. “Cold and strong,” I add. “The slayer of millions of Deathless.”

Jasmine nods approvingly. Ann squints with curiosity and Jimmy just stares at the head of his lover, wordless.

When the seventeen of us have reconvened at the Town Hall, we ensure that we are, each of us, properly armored before heading for the North Gate. John takes the Lock’s leash this time. Jasmine walks in the back with Marigold, keeping safe emotional and physical distance from the little Lock. We pass through the North Gate, and the tall, wrought-iron posts become just another thing behind us. The forest floor crunches and snaps under our heavy, Dead footfalls. When the woods open to the Whispers, I feel a chill of recognition snake its way through me, and I do not stop.

The Whispers whisper nothing, even when the fog becomes so thick I can’t see more than five steps ahead. My foot knocks into a thing on the ground that oughtn’t be there. When I pick up the thing, a coy smile teases my lips.

“Where are we headed?” someone calls from the back with a strained voice. It’s Ash who’s spoken up.

I lift the thing up high, a giant spider’s leg. “To where the trail of insect carcasses takes us.”

C H A P T E R – T H I R T E E N

S C A R

The Whispers, sometimes also referred to as The Scar in addition to its many, many names, is a big stretch of dead, horrible nothing. Geographically it is quite narrow, but The Scar extends immeasurably to the east and the west. One golden nugget of information that Megan lent me back at the city was: the rain never seems to touch here. As we follow the endless length of the Whispers, happening periodically on a stray spider leg or a cricket leg or some unidentifiable insect wing or long antennae, we know we are safe from Mother Nature’s murderous breath and tears.

“It’s very dark,” mutters John to me. “Even the sky.”

“I’m sure the sun’s due to rise soon. The night can’t last forever … not even in the Whispers.” I shiver, wishing the surroundings could be less gloomy for our journey. There isn’t even any conversations happening behind me; everyone’s marching so sullenly, you’d think we were headed to a funeral. Maybe we kinda are.

“I can picture us living in that little house.”

I try to smile, but the heaviness in my chest won’t seem to let me. “You weren’t always so kind. Sometimes you were kind of mean. You were a very brooding person when you were alive.”

John chuckles. “Brooding. Maybe I was in a bad mood because I was hungry all the time.”

I laugh, the smile coming more naturally now. “I don’t remember what being hungry feels like,” I say. Then I’m considering whether Claire even knew hunger. Whenever she wanted something, she got it.

The thought is a depressing one. Have I ever known hunger? Do I even understand the concept of starving? Of wanting and not having? Of craving and never being sated? In a way, I might imagine I do. Even the sordidly rich and spoiled know the agony of not getting what they want, in their own way. Claire demanded and demanded and demanded, but the things she truly needed—a friend, a companion, a lover—these things never graced her short, horrible life.

“I’d live in a tiny house like that with you,” says John, drawing me out of my darkness.

I turn my head, noticing Jasmine. She’s come closer now, daring herself within proximity of the little Lock who, ever since we left Old Trenton, has not uttered one syllable of speech. “Hey, Jazz.”

She nods. “You are wise, Winter Steel.” She gives a papery wink. “Following the pieces of insect.”

“A true detective,” I agree with a snort. “Do you remember After’s Hold?”

“Of course, rabbit.”

“That city was massive,” I point out. “Full of people, granted most of them turned into Grim’s Green Army. But I wonder … Why didn’t everyone go
there
instead of the place-of-nightmares Necropolis?”

Jasmine shakes her head with pity. “After’s Hold is no better than Old Trenton, I’m afraid. It’s been cracked by nature, broken and crumpled. A jungle of cement and tall trees, if you can imagine it. It rains there the most frequent. We’ve had Humans report to us.” She shrugs, then sighs. “The planet’s claiming it all back, I’m certain. I wonder if the world isn’t also trying to wash away the Living, sometimes. Some Humans have drowned in it.”

“That’s horrible,” John remarks, chiming in. I find his eyebrows creased with concern. “Even Humans?”

“The rain is not always so brief,” explains Jasmine. “Sometimes it can flood, even in New Trenton. That is why the Humans run for protection, too. The rain is hard and heavy and very unlike the kind we might’ve been used to in our First Lives.”

“Definitely not,” says Jimmy, grunting under the heavy helm he’s chosen to wear. “That rain tore at my backside, just for the brief moment I’d gone out in it. That rain
hurts
. Hundreds of daggers to your body, feels like.” He squeezes Ann’s head protectively at those words, inspiring a grunt of annoyance from her.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

The group stops, everyone turning in an instant to witness Marigold with her hands flattened to her face, her mouth stretched and a strange sort of scream-yell-holler emitting from it. When everyone pays mind to the dust and pieces of armor at her feet, gasps chorus through the lot of us.

“Bill,” mutters one of the teen girls, the one with blue hair. A hand moves to her mouth. “Oh, no.”

The ash swirls in the playful winds of the Whispers, carrying the bits of Bill around in twisty dust devils until every speck of him is lost to the wind, only a long metal spine, a breastplate and a pair of rubber boots remain.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

I rush up to Marigold, gripping her hands and taking on the full assault of her screaming to my face. “Marigold! Quiet down, please! Marigold!”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

I cough, gagging on a stray swirl of Bill’s dust that must still be in the air. Squinting my eyes, I implore Marigold to stop screaming. “Please, you’re panicking the younger ones. Marigold, pull yourself together.”

Her screaming stops in an instant and is regrettably replaced by a strange sort of vocal heaving—sucking in air, rasping, sucking in air, rasping—until I’m certain she will hyperventilate. When I dumbly realize she is literally incapable of hyperventilating, I place two firm hands on her shoulders. “Marigold …”

“I don’t want to die,” she says suddenly, then repeats it. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”

“You’re already dead,” I say gently.

“I DON’T WANT TO DIE YET!” she screams. “PLEASE! DON’T LET IT HAPPEN TO ME! OH, I HAVE SO MUCH LEFT I WANT TO DO AND SEE AND DOOOO!”

“I understand, Marigold. We all feel that way.” Won’t anyone help me calm her down? “None of us want to die. We’re going to steal back our immortality, you got it? All we need to do is follow these bug parts and, well, theoretically we ought to find Shee at the end of them. Don’t you think?”

“Empress,” she squeaks.

“
Empress
Shee,” I say, annoyed. “Please, Marigold. Will you stay calm? We’re in this together, all of us. You’re not alone.”

“Bill,” the blue-haired girl says again, her voice shaky, and she buries her face into the chest of the other teen girl, Sara, who brings around her arms.

“Okay,” Marigold finally says, despite her eyes looking like she’d just peeked into a nightmare factory. Her eyes look like she’s
still
in that nightmare. “Okay. Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.” She giggles, but it seems more like a giggle of terror than it does of joy. “Yes. Yes. Okay.”

The teen girls, gripping one another consolingly, march at the back while the group continues on. The one whose name might be William or Wilson or Willie seems especially stirred by the very sudden loss of Bill. He starts quietly talking to the Chief who only grunts and nods in response. The darkness of mood is creeping into all of us, taking permanent hold of all our happy thoughts and making plain the one, simple fact we are all trying so foolishly to avoid.

The fact that there is a countdown on all our heads.

“I’ve lied,” whispers Marigold quietly.

My arm is still around her consolingly. “What about?” I ask, encouraging her to speak.

“I was not a product of this age. I was not
created
here. I had a First Life. This is my Second Life, not my First. I had a First Life and it was so, so long ago, Winter. It was so long ago and I’m not ready to say goodbye to this world. Oh, Winter. I’ve so, so, so lied.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her, rubbing her back. “I’m certain you’re not the first who’s lied or otherwise concealed their First Life. It’s likely far more common than you think.”

“My First Life was so useless,” she moans, her voice sounding more like a ghost’s sad attempt at singing than it does actual speech. “Ooh, Winter, ooh, I was such a sad and quiet nobody. I had no friends and I amounted to nothing, Winter. My life was for nothing. I lived alone and I never married and I choked on the first bite of a TV dinner.” She moans, quivering, aghast. “I died
alone
.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” I don’t know who I’m trying to convince. “I died alone, too.”

“Did you?”

“Fell through the ice of a frozen lake. I doubt I was ever found.” I scratch her back. “Isn’t this such a pleasant conversation? I do hope it’s cheering you up.”

“It is,” she admits, grimacing. “Oh, what an awful way to go, what an awful way to go.”

I hug her and, peering over her shoulder, I beseech Jasmine and the others with my eyes. Isn’t
anyone
going to help me?

“I want my Second Life to mean something. I’ve so longed for a life of significance. My Old Life was such a terrible waste, Winter, such a
terrible, terrible waste
…”

“Nothing is wasted, Mari. You’ve helped bring many, many lost souls into this world,” I point out. “You’re the cheery face we all met and came to love. You gave me my Icecap Eyes and you fixed my body up and … and you made Winter. Your Second Life won’t be wasted.”

“I don’t want to die.”

“We’re already dead, sweetheart. We’re already dead. See? I’m not even using the Z-word.” My hand keeps running along her back, scratching and rubbing, and it’s all I can do to keep my own sanity and hers. The world is dark, the Whispers are endless, and the gloom must be kept at bay somehow.

Soon, we’re able to press on. I stay with Marigold and let John and the Chief keep lead, following the pieces of insect until, hours later, we seem to run out of spider parts to follow. The Whispers have yet to end and the gloom still suffocates us like a cold, dead memory.

“Just keep on forth,” I insist. “We’ll find them.”

Another hour later, we find the Whispers growing thinner and thinner. An hour more and a spread of trees can be seen through the foggy murk. I’m left to unhappily conclude that we have reached the official east end of The Scar. I worry this means our protection from the rain has ended and what remains of our journey will be spent depending each minute on John and sleepy-eyed Jimmy to read the skies above.

Within the woods, there are no crickets or stirring of things alive. I almost find comfort in the horrible deadness of the environment; seems a bit more like a home. The nearly-leafless trees connect far above us, joining in a sort of creepy, brambly canopy, like spider webs made of wood. The only sound is the clumsy, awkward footsteps of my companions as they walk over thick roots and fallen branches that threaten to steal away their balance with each ungainly step.

“Keep up your feet,” gripes Ann. “Every time you step down like that,
Jimmy
, you’re jostling my
brain
.”

“Sweetheart, we’ve … been through this … an hour ago.” He’s totally out of breath, fatigued and stumbling everywhere like a drunken fool. “You … don’t have … a brain, technically.”

“Yes, I
do
. It’s where all my
Anima
is stored, you big dumb clot.”

“I need … a
drink
,” Jimmy stammers, frustrated. “I need a … I need a
drink
.” He stops finally, pulling his backpack around to fish out a canister of water. “Thirsty. Thirsty,” he keeps repeating until finally the canister is in his hand and he’s kicked back his head, chugging.

“Save some of it,” Ann says, half-muffled in his arm. “Learn to sip. Ugh, you’re
spilling
it on me!”

“Sorry.” He thrusts the canister away and dabs at the drops that flecked onto Ann’s irritated face with a thumb. “I love you.” He plants a kiss on her while she squirms.