Bad Men

She was almost at the clearing when something brushed by her feet. She looked down and saw a gray shape moving swiftly past her, tattered clothing hanging on mummified skin, wisps of hair protruding from beneath the folds of its shroud. It appeared to float slightly above the ground, leaving no trace of its passage, while its thin hands used rocks and tree trunks to pull itself along, like a diver exploring the seabed. Marianne shrank from it and her legs touched another shape as it swept by her, seemingly oblivious to her presence.

She raised her head and saw that she was surrounded. Pale forms moved across the forest floor, some as big as men, others as small as children. She caught indistinct glimpses of faces lost in the folds of gowns and shrouds, flashes of torn feet, broken skin, and large, dark eyes. Rooted to the spot, she tried to scream, but no sound came.

Then a voice spoke, and it was her voice, yet it did not come from her.

“Leave,” the voice said, and Marianne thought that she felt a hand brush against her skin and she saw-

A man descending upon her, Moloch, yet not Moloch, and she felt him enter her, and the blade beginning its work, cutting and tearing at her. She was dying, and others were dying around her.

The voice came again, a soft woman’s voice.

“Leave.”

And the gray shapes continued to weave around her, disappearing beneath rocks and under tree trunks, descending through all the dark, hollow places and into the world below.

The last to sink away was a woman. Marianne could see the swell of breasts beneath her clothing, and her long hair gently brushing the snow. Before she descended, the woman stared back at her, and Marianne looked into her own face. It was a face ruined by old wounds, its nose broken and its cheekbones shattered, its eyes a deep black, as though colonized by some terrible cancer, but it was still a face that closely resembled her own.

Then the woman found a gap between the roots of a great beech tree, and was gone.

Dexter had made it to the edge of the old man’s yard, half stumbling, half crawling until he reached the treeline. He had jammed wads of bills, now soaked with red, into the waistband of his pants. Ahead of him he could see a narrow pathway leading from the cliff edge to the shore. The boat would be down there. If he could get to it, he would take his chances on the sea. If he stayed on the island, he would be found, or he would die.

He leaned against a tree trunk to catch his breath, but when he tried to rise again he found that he could not. His body had taken too many shots. He had lost too much blood. He was weakening.

Dexter slid down the bark until he came to rest on the ground. The blizzard was easing, he noticed. The snow was falling more gently now. He stretched his legs out before him and removed the money from his pants. The bills were smeared so thickly with his blood that he could barely read the denominations. He removed the band from one of the wads, spread the notes in his hand, and watched the wind spirit them away, some carried up into the air, others dancing across the snow.

Dexter noticed other shapes moving among the discarded bills. One came to rest on his leg. He reached down and gently touched the moth’s wings. It fluttered against his fingers, then took flight. He watched it, following its progress until it came to rest upon a small girl who stood among the trees, watching him. Dexter could see her long, pale hair, but her face was lost in shadow. She looked almost like a moth herself, Dexter thought. A cloak hung over her shoulders, so that when she extended her arms, they took on the appearance of wings.

“Hey,” said Dexter. “You think you could help me?”

He swallowed.

“I want to get down to the water. I have money. You could buy yourself something nice.”

He extended one of the remaining wads of bills toward her. The girl moved forward.

“That’s it,” said Dexter. “Come on now. You help me get out of here and I’ll-”

The Gray Girl’s feet were not touching the ground. She floated toward Dexter, her arms wide and her dark eyes gleaming, her skin wrinkled and decayed. Dexter opened his mouth to scream and the Gray Girl’s lips closed on his. Her hands gripped his head and her knees pinned his arms to the trunk of the tree. Blood poured from the meeting of their mouths as Dexter shook, the life slowly being drawn from him and into the Gray Girl, a life taken in return for the life stolen from her.

And then the Gray Girl drew back from the dead man, her dark eyes closing briefly in ecstasy, moths falling dead around her as she followed her companions at last into the depths.