TBD (the manuscript)

Someone shouted down in them hills below the mountains that had no names.  Maybe they had names, but no one knew them.  The hill country sitting as the welcome mat in front of those massive front steps to the sky had no names either, unless being called hills counted.  That was where that shout crawled up against them mountains, them cloud kissing sky toes.  The shout tried to echo, but got lost in the still snowy slopes.

He grabbed the young’un by the collar, feeling the anger that burned cold in the chest.

“What in yer mind got you thinkin’ this were a good idea?”

Knew he’d felt someone watching him.  He’d caught the boy hiding in the brush just up the hill from the fire.  When he’d grabbed him the boy had given up one fearful sort of yelp.

“I’m sorry Mister Thomas.  I thought-“

“You nothing the kind boy.  Thinkin’ woulda had you back up in them mountains helping out Mother with them that’s sick.”

The sun was setting.  They weren’t in the lows and the fire would keep the mountain cat away, but you never could be too safe.  He stared at that boy and stifled the cussing just wrestling his tongue to get out.  Despite the rising heat of coming down out of the mountains, the boy was shivering something fierce.  He let the boy go and walked back down the hill through the waist high brush, back to the fire.  Sitting down on his bedroll, he took the joepot from the edge of the ashes and poured himself a cup.  The boy came out of the growing shadows, the blind courage of approaching manhood mixing funny on his face with the shame of leaving the Orphanage.

“Are you going to take me back?”

He took a sip of his joe and chewed for a moment on the edge of his moustache, a sign he’d set himself to pondering.  A wolf’s lonesome howl fell from the slopes, seeming to pull the sun down back behind the mountains, the mountains glowing gentle like, red tinged teeth thirsting for sunset.  Young’un had no idea what he was getting hisself into.  Grabbing some of his bedding, he bundled it up and tossed it to the boy.

“Thank you Mister Thomas.”

“Just git yerself some shut eye.  I’ll figure on what to do with you in the mornun.”
The boy wrapped up in the bedding and fell quickly asleep next to the small fire.  Cautious against the growing shadows, the old man kicked dirt on the fire and took a slow walk around the campsite to get a feel for the lay of the land.  If a mob came up this far into the hill country they would have to be ready.  He spit, jaw aching with memory.  Lurks, grabbers, rots, deadheads, moans.  Whatever you called them they was the first thing a body had to be a fearing down in the lows, out in the rough.

The wolf howled again, pulling some kind of heaviness up into his chest as another wolf joined in.  They was too close to the lows to have to worry about wolves.  No critter in their right mind went down into the lows.  Never had as far as he knew.  Maybe they had Before, back when there weren’t no such thing as a mob.  The lows.  It weren’t nothing but a barren wasteland of scattered townships and old ruins for weeks anywhere east of the mountains that held the Orphanage safe.

The boy stirred in his sleep, face mussed up with the dust of trekking through the mountains on the heels of an old coyote of a man.  He sat down, putting his back up against a rock, and unbuttoned the holster tied down against his leg.  Never could be too cautious.  His joe was cold and near strong enough to float a spoon as he fought to choke it down.  Soon as the sun come up they’d light a shuck for the closest township, a walled up little place he’d visited now and a again.  He chewed his stache and regretted his empty cup, Belfry was it?  He nodded, Belfry.  Tapping his shirt pocket gently he felt the faint outline of the letter Mother had given him.  All them sick folk and they were counting on him, Thomas Mota, to be a man who would stand to the counting.  He sighed and remembered how Mother had looked at him with that sort of trust that don’t get handed out for free.  She’d written down what he needed to find and find it he would.  Find it he-

“Mister Thomas?  Mister Thomas?”

He woke with a start, looking up to find the sun peeking at him what looked to him to be the center of the lows.  Catching the cussing he felt all gathered up at the tip of his tongue, he got to his feet and went to packing up his gear.

“Stir your stumps boy,” he said while rolling up the bedding and tying it down against the heavy rucksack he’d stashed in the brush,” we got until sundown to make Old Knob.”

The boy smiled, doing as he’d been taught, burying the ashes of little fire in the brush, where he found a dead bunch of Big Sage and began erasing all signs that they’d spent the night.  A good tracker wouldn’t be fooled, but the fleshers didn’t put much stock in any sort of hard work, much less tracking.

“Let’s go,” he said, hoisting the rucksack onto his back and tying the harness off in a simple half hitch.

The lay of the land was good for trekking, rolling softly downward from the mountains at their backs, down, down into the lows.  Old Knob was a fat little knoll nearing the end of the hill country underneath which was a cave where he’d slept on his past wanderings down into the lows.  What had been the occasional tree or hefty clump of brush died away to near nothing by the time the sun was sitting all the way on top of the sky.  The boy was starting to lag behind so he turned and gave him a stern looking to.

“Ain’t time to drag your dogs boy.  We got to make Old Knob by sundown.”

“Why?”

“Can’t see clear enough at night.  The lows will take your life faster than death itself, and that’s in the daylight.  Boy you-“

“Luke,” the boy said, confidently.

“Is Bear your pappy?”

The boy just nodded.  Trying to walk faster so as to keep up.  Now that he knew, the boy did have the look.

“How many seasons you got tucked under your belt?”

“I’m twelve years old.”

Thomas frowned, looking up and then back to the boy.  Twelve?  Boy looked more near fifteen.  Hands and feet as he had, he might even be bigger than his pappy.  And they didn’t call Bear that sort of name for no reason.  The boy was short though.  Bear was a tall man with the sort of heft left for critters of his namesake.  Grunting to himself, he tried not to let himself wish that Luke was older.  A shame it was that the other menfolk had all be stricken with the sickness.  He shuddered at the thought.  Hadn’t been sick a day in his life, far as he knew, and he didn’t plan on it.

“You got to know Luke, about what we’re walking into.  You may a heard about Lurks and fleshers from your mammy and pappy, but until you seen ‘em you don’t know nothing about ‘em.”

“Lurks don’t scare me,” Luke said, standing a bit taller, chin set like he was getting all ready to have it out with what he imagined such a nightmare would look like.

The boy jumped, skittish like a horse, when he nudged him with the handle of the spare gun he kept inside his jacket.

“If you’re that kind of brave then carry this with you.”

The boy held the gun awkwardly in his hands.

“It’s a .357.  It ain’t gonna kill you no mountain cat, but you aim it right and it’ll drop a Lurk in on shot.  If we do run into a mob of them Lurks, what do you aim for?”

“The head.”

“That’s right, the head.  Don’t you forget it either.  You let your hackles get all rised up and take the better of you, you’ll just start popping of shots and get nothing but eated.”

The boy nodded as he put the gun in his pocket, that prideful sort of grin every boy gets sometime or other just a shining off of his face.  It wouldn’t serve the boy right if he got to full of himself over a new toy.

“Keep yer head on a swivel and yer eyes sharp, Lurks you’ll see coming.  But fleshers’ll wait.  They’ll wait ‘till they can get you when you ain’t looking.  They call us “man-meat,” and they mean exactly that.  Don’t take it the wrong way boy, but if we get caught up with fleshers and there ain’t no way out I’ll put lead in you boy.  Getting shot is a sight better way to die than getting eaten.”

Luke just nodded, face a sickly gray.  They stopped to rest at a dip in the hills, a dent in the ground sort of like, filled up with thick, heavy brush, some Big Sage, some of what looked like cheatgrass, but bigger.  Mr. Thomas hummed to himself as he set his pack down and left Luke just a staring after him as he waded into the thick brush, heavy old knife in hand.  Maybe he shouldn’t shared his thinking about getting fetched by fleshers, but it weren’t in him to sugar up the truth, especially for a softfooted young’un all green around the ears.  Near the middle of the big old patch of brush he found what he was looking for.  The ground dipped even sharper, like a giant thumb was pressing down into the dirt.  Taking his knife, he dug around underneath the brush where center of the slump looked to him and then began pulling earth up until he had a hole deep enough to stick his arm in up to the elbow.  Standing, he looked over the top of the brush back at the boy, slapping the grit and dust from his hands against his trousers.

“Luke!”

The boy just stared down at the flatness of the lows.

“Luke!”

“What is it Mister Thomas?”

“Toss me whatever watersack you brought with you, make sure an drink whatever you got left in it first.”

Biggest concern down in the lows was water.  Weren’t no mountain springs, no streams, no snow to melt in case you got to thirsting.  Luke tossed him an old watersack, metal head sealed shut with a rubber cap.  Undoing his own watersack, he knelt down next to the hole he’d dug and grinned.  He’d expected the bottom of the hole to be wet, instead water had filled a good third of the hole.  He made short work of the lot of it, drinking some for his own self after he’d filled the watersacks.  Making his way out through the brush, he was glad for his thick trousers and jacket.  Wading through that kind of brush unprotected was asking for a cutting.  No feller in his right mind risked infection, even with the smallest of cuts.  Something just weren’t right down in the lows.  Wounds didn’t heal as fast and infection had a way of wrapping you up fever and shakes enough to break bones.

He stepped out of the brush, watersacks over his shoulder, picking at a callous on his palm.  Some sort of extra sense, an understanding bread by living and scraping to survive in the rough told him that something was wrong even before he looked up to find the boy gone.  Looking around quickly he noticed that his rucksack was still where he’d left it.  Weren’t fleshers.  They took anything and everything and wouldn’t have left a treasure trove like the rucksack behind.  A shuffling figure broke through passel of Big Sage a good fifty paces down from him.  Cussing, he threw himself back into the brush and lay still.  Maybe it hadn’t seen him.  Something nudged his elbow.  He drew his gun from the holster so fast he didn’t even think about doing it.  Luke stared down the barrel of the sig, holding his breath like it would keep the bullet from harming him.

“Sorry boy,” Mr. Thomas whispered, lowering the gun,” just don’t move.  If it’s alone I can deal with it.  But if there’s a mob then there ain’t no point in fighting.  Just lay boy.  Just lay.”

It weren’t long before the shuffling steps eked out from underneath the low whistle of the wind.  From their hiding place in the brush they could see movement.  Must be no more than ten paces out.  Any doubts that it was a Lurk vanished when he heard the moan.  Cussing silently under his breath he waited, knuckles white as he gripped the sig tight.  He couldn’t hear no other moaning.  The shuffling steps were slower now, moan sort of fading into a wheezing sound that seemed heavy and choked.  A weighty thud startled the boy so bad he looked near ready to cut and run.  Running from a Lurk never did no good.  Run as you might, a Lurk never stopped coming.  Just that steady shuffling, following you until you couldn’t run no more.  Then it was kill or be killed.  But that weren’t really right.  Lurks were as dead as dead could get.  That’s what made a Lurk.  His first nightmares had been of the dead rising as Lurks.  Worst he ever seen it was when it was folk he knew.  Couldn’t imagine what it had been like for those who had kinfolk that undertook the change.

There hadn’t been no shuffling since the thud, so he got up, looking carefully over the top of the brush.  The Lurk didn’t seem to be-

He looked down just as Luke started screaming.  Skin all sloughed off its face, the Lurk was crawling through the brush at them.  Mister Thomas reached down, catching Luke’s collar and trying to pull him away from the dead eyed monster grabbing at his arm.  A mouth full of rotted teeth and clotted blood gapped open, ready for some of Luke’s hand.  Cussing his old bones, Mister Thomas fell, gun in hand scrambling for Luke while aiming as best he could through the bent up brush at the Lurk.  His blood went cold as he let Luke go and took careful aim.  Between the moaning and the screaming and the whispery howl of the descending mountain wind there clapped out a single shot, echo crawling up and down the slopes for miles.