Lightspeed: Year One

Ordinarily I’d have welcomed the caution. There was a certain flavor of tourist who hooted his glee every time he pulled a trigger, or almost pulled a trigger, or thought about pulling triggers. But silence seemed ridiculous now, and I didn’t appreciate the boy hushing me. “We’re the only game in town, kid. Every corpse for miles around already knows we’re here.”

He gave another half-shrug.

The creek was low enough that we didn’t bother walking on stones. Tadpoles flitted around our boots. On the other side, we started moving uphill again. The leaves here were shot through with streaks of red, as if we’d stumbled our way deep into autumn.

“You’re a hell of a good son,” I said. “Boy your age usually wants to strangle his daddy.”

He looked back. “Did you strangle yours?”

“Never knew him. But I wanted to.” I paused. “Strangle him, I mean.”

He chewed that over a while. “Where did you grow up?”

“Richmond.”

“Never heard of it.”

“That’s because it ain’t there anymore.”

The flutter of birds overhead. You could depend on birds. They died and stayed dead. Twigs snapped underfoot. The climb sharpened.

“I have to be honest with you,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Sometimes, I think I’m not a good enough person.”

“I know I’m not.”

“I mean to speak the tongue. The angels’ language.”

“Are you an angel?”

“No.”

“There you go.”

P.K. pursed his lips, looked like he wanted to say something. Instead, he pointed up. I followed the line of his finger to the purpling sky ahead and the silhouette of an old fire tower. When clients wanted to hunt, I took them to towers like that. Tall, ancient, sturdy. Dead folks are slow climbers.

“That’s where he’ll be,” said the boy. “I should warn you—”

I raised my hand to cut him off. Listened.

“Do you hear that?” I whispered.

The strongest argument against talking when you’re outside is that your voice masks important warnings. Like the sound of feet against dirt, running.

We sprinted up the hill. P.K. scanned the woods ahead, his rifle following his eyes, and I glanced back over my shoulder. My lungs felt like someone had balled them up, pissed on them, and stapled them into my ribcage, but I pushed on, legs dragging underneath me. My feed was hot with its broadcast of I am alive, I am still alive, I will pay my debts, and a tendril of shame shot through the middle of my fear, because this was the only reason anyone cared that I was alive, to earn and owe money. We made it halfway to the tower before I saw our pursuers, and realized I’d been wrong about the sound.

It wasn’t just feet against the dirt.

There were also paws.

The wolves were ragged, skeletal things, ribs half-exposed beneath gray and white fur. They wove like steel needles through the trees. A man and a woman trailed the wolves, wearing tattered green uniforms. I fired at the closest animal. Missed.

“Behind us,” I rasped.

P.K. twisted around as he ran, took aim, tore the front legs off the wolf I’d missed. I couldn’t tell how many were left—they ducked in and out of sight, gray-green blurs, faces of the forest. One appeared a body’s length from P.K.’s left side; I got it in the head, almost fell over the body as it crumpled. Caught my footing and squeezed off a shot at the man in green.

The dead didn’t breathe, didn’t growl or hiss or groan. They watched and lunged and snapped, silent. Eyes flashed ahead. They flanked us with a kind of brutal grace, closing from every side with each footfall, and I had one of those idiot epiphanies that seem profound when you’re dizzy with adrenaline and about to be eaten: It’s like they’re dancing. Every lunge in concert, every bite. We were going to die because the dead were dancers.

The kid stopped.

I was running too fast, too close behind him. We hit the dirt. Someone shouted, but I didn’t understand the words. I smelled rotted meat. I tried to stand but my legs were tangled; someone was still shouting. My shoulder throbbed. Each breath was a suckerpunch. I gripped the Colt, braced for the bite, and someone was still shouting. I looked up.

The dead all stared at the man in black.

He was tall, pale. He wore a day’s gray-brown stubble and his eyes were hidden by the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat. His voice was hoarse but commanding as hunger—every nonsense syllable he shouted was a slap, a crack, all thunder and hard edges. The dead folks slumped as he spoke, cowed or subdued or enraptured. The wolves pawed the dirt, uncertain, saliva dripping from their mouths, their eyes never leaving the preacher. Joseph took off his hat and stared down at his son, his blue eyes blunt, and then he spoke English instead of the babble of Heaven.

“Go on and shoot ’em,” he said. “My throat hurts like a bitch.”