***
Now, we all know that the bodies of the dead had commenced to rise long before I ever got into the “business” of killing such creatures again. Some people date this turn of events back to the War Between States, or even to slightly before it, claiming it a sign of God’s impending judgment on America for harbouring hexation. For those slightly more well-read, however, it’s easy enough to prove how the first true incidences had far more to do with the influence of two heathen Mex demons who called themselves gods allied with a passel of dueling hexes than to anything the Good Book ever predicted.
To begin with, in the wake of the Mexico City earthquake, there was a springing up of what would come to be called Red Weed all across Arizona and New Mexico—pernicious stuff, well-known to infest livestock, causing them to move about long after they’d been drained of all true life. And it’s true that the first dead things I killed, back on my family’s farmland, were definitely Weed-infested, staggering here and there with little scarlet flowers a-bloom from all their orifices—they’d twist their vines as I approached, snapping and creaking, juicy with anticipation of seeding my flesh and mulching my remains. These I took down from a distance when I could, popping their knees, then stamped on their heads and jointed them as they lay twitching, stacking the remains up afterwards to burn.
But then came the Hex War, in which those old Mex demon-gods met their downfall, along with plenty of others. By its end, mages who’d never before been able to meddle formed compacts and founded whole cities, the Pinkerton Agency gave way to the Thiels, and a crack opened halfway down to Hell itself, some said, releasing all manner of bad things into this world: horse-sized spiders, bone-dust monsters, dogs with human hands. Was only after that when the dead we know today began to make ‘emselves evident, either clawing up out of graves or fresh-turned, with no trace of Weed to be seen. They spread their sickness through biting and ate all in their path, which was why the government fixed so high a bounty on evidence of their destruction.
Thus the era we now live in was formed, so far as I can reckon: a place of black miracles where towns feed their Weed-banks blood in exchange for fertile soil, where hexes can finally be diagnosed through arcanistry and expressed at their own request, either emigrating to Hexicas to live with their own folk or joining up with the Thiels to fight the unnatural with yet more unnaturalness, after. And we poor unmagicals are mainly left to flounder, finding our own way through darkness, with corpses nipping at our heels.
I had left Caxton, back Georgia way, as a too-tall, ugly woman with no prospects, monetary or otherwise. But by the time I crossed the border into Tennessee, circumstances had conspired in such a way that I now passed for a towering, raw-boned man, my general lack of beauty suddenly rendered “noble” and “distinctive” by a mere change from skirts to trousers. Which is how I eventually came to stride these streets like Lincoln reborn, though by necessity rendered beardless.
It was nothing to me to alter my sex in such a manner, since I have been treated as a workhorse all my life, which may well be why I’ve grown to look it. I was not raised gently, nor am I gentle by nature, and thus it ever seemed to me I was probably not made for gentle things, long before later experiences managed to prove that thesis well beyond a shadow of a doubt.
My family claimed to have been of some stature at one point, long before the War (though that conflagration might be, and often was, credited with marking the utter end of their fortune’s downwards turn), and as is often the case, they had long pinned all hopes of social resurrection on my brother, sole heir to what tiny fortune we retained. Unfortunately for them, as is equally often the case, Philip turned out to be both completely uninterested in and woefully inadequate to the task at hand; instead of delivering on his supposed promise, he instead chose to use the Hex War’s final spasms as an excuse to betray them by taking whatever he believed himself entitled to and running off, never to return . . . one of those things, as it ensued, being me.
I suppose I could have fought him on this point, but given I had no great interest in helping to redeem my family’s name either, it was easier by far to leave with him than to do so alone. We did not long stay in company, at any rate, only reaching so far as it took Philip to find a low groggery, some fools to try and cheat at cards, and enough drink to get him in the mood to do so.
I fell asleep in the corner and woke to find myself alone, aside from the man I’d previously seen pouring drinks the night before. His friends were outside, hooting and hollering. When I asked him as to Philip’s whereabouts, he all but rubbed his hands toget
her at the prospect of shocking me with a revelation that proved no great surprise at all, before commencing in on whatever else he might’ve had in mind.
“Left you to us in trade, that brother of yours,” he said. And: “Oh really?” was all I replied, reaching for the slim-ground paring knife I’d secreted in my sleeve.
Though thus disappointed in his intentions, he nevertheless approached me without any sort of fear, perhaps assuming me as stupid as I was ugly, or that I had some sort of investment in thinking myself a frail flower in need of rescue. Whilst I, on the other hand, simply waited for him to draw close enough, then drove my blade deep into his eye.
He had a belt with a gun on one hip, and I buckled it ‘round me, though I knew it unlikely to do me much good; indeed, there was barely enough time to do so before his friends kicked the door open and saw me all over bloody, their leader at my feet. They made their threats and I listened, then laughed. “Little pleasure to be had from a corpse,” I told them, palming the knife’s hilt once more, “but you’re welcome enough to it, I suppose.”
A second later, I’d already drawn its still-sticky edge ‘cross that place where my Adam’s apple should have been, quick as a wink, and lay there watching them dissolve into darkness even as they stood looking down on me, cursing. Yet I woke later, alone, surrounded by fresh carnage. The place was silent, bloodier still than I’d left it. By the marks left behind, I took it that a herd of dead things had passed through, coming and going, leaving ruin in their wake. That they had left me untouched was indeed an oddity, but my throat hurt far too much for me to ponder on it long. Like them, therefore, I rose again, albeit in a very different way.
The rest of the man’s clothes fit me as well, to a point. I covered up my wound, cut my hair. And so I became myself, at last, leaving the creature once called Myrtella in the dust behind me; I was “Mister Phillips” from thence on, with no real need of a first name, seeing how I’d already reclaimed my brother’s and thrown away my father’s.
Looking back, I now see that much of what I’ve accomplished since has been in the service of turning myself into him, only better—becoming in truth the man he only professed to be, between the big talk and the sister-selling. One way or the other, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt how in my own odd way, I’ve done more for others than he ever would have looked to do, and ten times more effectively. This whole town stands testament to that, as I believe you’d agree . . .
. . . if nothing else.
***
I well-knew I should’ve left Satan’s Jewel Crown right after I turned in my haul and got my coin, but the plain fact is, I just didn’t want to. Instead, I felt a new and aching need to stay ‘round Anthea for as long as I could, to follow this hook she’d set in my heart, and see where it might lead. It posed a puzzle, since to be near other folks was usually never much more than trouble, or so I’d always found: they soon enough started to want to know me, to ask after where I’d come from, where I’d been. What-all I might—or might not—have done.
Anthea’s boss, Mister Colquitt, who ran the saloon she worked in, thought paying her was tantamount to owning her. She’d been able to cry him off thus far by citing her widowhood, but when he saw her look to me, that all fell by the wayside. He was high up in the town council and commenced to whisper in ears, making them wonder what it was I was after, ‘sides from what he already wanted.
“You’re looking to marry my mama, ain’t you, Mister Phillips?” Meem asked me. “Why?”
“To look after her, ‘course. Don’t you want that?”
“I guess. She does need looking after.”
“You too, I bet.”
“ . . . Maybe.”
That very same night, the first of the dead came in, and while others ran and screamed, I stood and fought. I’d already been noticed, but that got me some credit. Was enough so that three nights on—once we’d dug the trenches I suggested, and filled ‘em with pitch against new incursions—I slipped into saloon-keeper Colquitt’s rooms with a particular head I kept deep in my pack, too rotted up to sell but still straining to bite, whenever I set my hand on it. In the morning, he came staggering down with his eyes rolled back and his teeth all a-snap, so I drew Anthea out of his way and let him get far enough outside anyone near could see, before pocking him through the forehead.
The verdict came in he’d died in the night of wounds he’d kept hid, then risen back up. And I was good and in after that, clung fast, dug deep as a tick . . . so close to the town’s beating heart I could not only feel its pulse but taste its blood as well, sipping it down like finest victory wine.
Meem saw me bury the head, later on; made certain I saw her see me, too. But she never said anything, so I gathered it must’ve suited her I stay, as well as the rest. Strange little girl.
I’d been one of those myself, once.