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Authors: Thomas Mullen
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guard post, okay?”
“Okay.” Their eyes locked for what felt like an uncomfortable amount of time.
“And if something interesting happens again, you’d better come tell me about it.” She smiled again. “I don’t want to have to carry cornmeal across town just to hear all the good stories.”
She turned and hurried off.
Philip kicked the door shut and ran to the dining room table, dropping the bags with a heavy crash. He sat down and shook his hands to get the blood flowing.
It was quiet in the house. He sat there for a while, thinking about Elsie but also, inescapably, about what he and Graham had done. He looked at his hands and thought of Graham’s four-fingered hand, wondering if Graham ever stayed up at night worrying that he’d lose more fingers on the job. One lost finger you could deal with, you could accept. Carry things with the other hand, learn to give an extra 25 percent of strength and dexterity to the remaining four fingers. But losing a second or third would be tougher, surely. Philip had seen many such men in Everett and Commonwealth, had caught glimpses of their horrible claws in the rare moments when they let their hands out of their pockets and exposed them to the world and the amazed gazes of children. He wondered if there was some end point, some line in the dirt, some amount of pain and suffering beyond which one could never continue.
Philip sat there and massaged his sore arms with his numb fingers, waiting for the feeling to return.
V
T he body only felt light because six of them were lifting it.
On the doctor’s orders, they’d waited exactly twenty-four hours, unsure whether Banes had cold hard science as his reason or if he was just superstitious. Maybe this was how you were supposed to bury vampires or the possessed to make sure they wouldn’t rise again.
Philip had left the mill office to come down there, though Charles had told him he didn’t need to. He had dreamed of the soldier the night before and had been thinking of him all day, and he knew it would have been wrong to run from this last duty.
The other gravediggers were men who, in addition to their jobs as millworkers and lumberjacks, were serving the town as guards: Rankle, Mo, Deacon, and Graham.
“Vultures didn’t get to it,” someone remarked.
“Deacon wouldn’t let them,” Rankle said softly.
Deacon just nodded.
“You shoot at the vultures?” asked Mo.
Deacon shook his head. “They stayed away,” he said in his raspy voice.
Indeed, Deacon, with his gaunt cheeks and flimsy limbs and coal-black eyes, looked like a scarecrow brought to wicked life. Philip could easily imagine wild, carnivorous birds keeping their distance from him—people did the same thing. Deacon had once trained to be a Catholic priest, so the story went, but he’d decided that God wasn’t calling out to him after all. He was a man who usually kept quiet, allowing the demons to fight out their arguments in his head. Others noticed that when he thought he was alone, he swore like a madman.
Philip had never dug a grave before, though he figured the others had. This couldn’t be the first burial for Doc Banes, nor could it be for Graham. And Deacon all but looked like an undertaker.
Jarred Rankle also had the air of a man who had dug his share of graves. A short but strong man whose brown hair had recently gone gray, he had eyes that looked as if they had been carved too deep into his granite face, and they seemed all the darker for hiding beneath those craggy brows. Rankle was one of Charles’s favorite foremen, both for his efficiency and for his intellect. A former Wobbly of high rank, he often visited the Worthy residence to write political letters with Rebecca or read from her ever-growing pile of radical journals. He was an uncle of sorts to Philip and Laura and an irregular guest for meals, as he had no wife of his own. Rebecca had told Philip once that Rankle had a family years ago but had “lost” them. She had
“Okay.” Their eyes locked for what felt like an uncomfortable amount of time.
“And if something interesting happens again, you’d better come tell me about it.” She smiled again. “I don’t want to have to carry cornmeal across town just to hear all the good stories.”
She turned and hurried off.
Philip kicked the door shut and ran to the dining room table, dropping the bags with a heavy crash. He sat down and shook his hands to get the blood flowing.
It was quiet in the house. He sat there for a while, thinking about Elsie but also, inescapably, about what he and Graham had done. He looked at his hands and thought of Graham’s four-fingered hand, wondering if Graham ever stayed up at night worrying that he’d lose more fingers on the job. One lost finger you could deal with, you could accept. Carry things with the other hand, learn to give an extra 25 percent of strength and dexterity to the remaining four fingers. But losing a second or third would be tougher, surely. Philip had seen many such men in Everett and Commonwealth, had caught glimpses of their horrible claws in the rare moments when they let their hands out of their pockets and exposed them to the world and the amazed gazes of children. He wondered if there was some end point, some line in the dirt, some amount of pain and suffering beyond which one could never continue.
Philip sat there and massaged his sore arms with his numb fingers, waiting for the feeling to return.
V
T he body only felt light because six of them were lifting it.
On the doctor’s orders, they’d waited exactly twenty-four hours, unsure whether Banes had cold hard science as his reason or if he was just superstitious. Maybe this was how you were supposed to bury vampires or the possessed to make sure they wouldn’t rise again.
Philip had left the mill office to come down there, though Charles had told him he didn’t need to. He had dreamed of the soldier the night before and had been thinking of him all day, and he knew it would have been wrong to run from this last duty.
The other gravediggers were men who, in addition to their jobs as millworkers and lumberjacks, were serving the town as guards: Rankle, Mo, Deacon, and Graham.
“Vultures didn’t get to it,” someone remarked.
“Deacon wouldn’t let them,” Rankle said softly.
Deacon just nodded.
“You shoot at the vultures?” asked Mo.
Deacon shook his head. “They stayed away,” he said in his raspy voice.
Indeed, Deacon, with his gaunt cheeks and flimsy limbs and coal-black eyes, looked like a scarecrow brought to wicked life. Philip could easily imagine wild, carnivorous birds keeping their distance from him—people did the same thing. Deacon had once trained to be a Catholic priest, so the story went, but he’d decided that God wasn’t calling out to him after all. He was a man who usually kept quiet, allowing the demons to fight out their arguments in his head. Others noticed that when he thought he was alone, he swore like a madman.
Philip had never dug a grave before, though he figured the others had. This couldn’t be the first burial for Doc Banes, nor could it be for Graham. And Deacon all but looked like an undertaker.
Jarred Rankle also had the air of a man who had dug his share of graves. A short but strong man whose brown hair had recently gone gray, he had eyes that looked as if they had been carved too deep into his granite face, and they seemed all the darker for hiding beneath those craggy brows. Rankle was one of Charles’s favorite foremen, both for his efficiency and for his intellect. A former Wobbly of high rank, he often visited the Worthy residence to write political letters with Rebecca or read from her ever-growing pile of radical journals. He was an uncle of sorts to Philip and Laura and an irregular guest for meals, as he had no wife of his own. Rebecca had told Philip once that Rankle had a family years ago but had “lost” them. She had
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