61

 

WE KNOW WE are nearing the Mission. There are telltale signs. Splotches of encrusted yellow dotting the rails, like desiccated bird droppings, then larger sheets dangling off nearby tree branches like hung laundry. The remains of the duskers who’d attacked the Mission nights ago. The train slows; an hour later we round a bend in the mountain, and the bridge to the Mission, still lowered, comes into view.

It is daytime and our earlier fear, that we might arrive in the dark hours of night, hand-delivered into the lap of whatever hardy duskers might still be roving about, is put to rest. So, too, is the apprehension over the duskers. None have survived.

The cobblestone streets are empty. Everywhere we look, windows and doors to the empty cottages have been smashed apart and left gaping like stunned eyes and shocked mouths. Sunbeams shaft into them. We enter the nearest one, and go from room to room, piling on layer after layer of clothing over our shivering rib cages and concaved stomachs.

Even the Vastnarium, where we feared some duskers might be holding out, is empty. The back wall has been smashed down and ground to powder, probably from the outward pressure of a panicked horde seeking shelter from the sun. Inside, layers of desiccated yellow, a foot high on the floor, an inch thick off the walls.

Evidence of their mass demise is everywhere in the Mission: on the meadows, at the farm, along the fortress wall, everywhere there are desiccated crusts of yellow. And there is not a human bone to be found anywhere, not a strand of human hair, not a stain of human blood. Everything devoured, licked up, wiped from existence.

Death has run roughshod through this blighted village, no respecter of species. Nothing moves in this village; nothing sounds. No shuffling girls, no morning chimes, no singing choirs, no midnight screams. There is only the sound of cold wind fluting between the ribs of this ghost-town carcass.

At the laundry deck by the stream, we cup our shaking hands into the ice-cold water, drink in gulp after gulp. We raid the kitchen, gorging ourselves on the nibbles of food we find scattered amidst the carnage. Pickles in cast-off jars, cucumbers snapped in half, trampled-on loaves of bread. We can’t get enough; if it’s edible, it’s in our mouths.

Afterward, still unable to stop shivering, we sit before the fireplace of a nearby cottage. The fire is soothing; the combination of food, water, warmth, and a comfortable sofa conspire to lull us toward sleep. But Sissy’s hand in mine tightens with realization.

“David,” she says. “We can’t leave him out there like that.”

We head back outside, trudge to the train station, shovels in hand. He is in exactly the same position we left him, lying in the empty train car, only seemingly lonelier. A stab of guilt digs and twists in both of us. We’d wanted to carry him with us when we first arrived, but we were too weak at the time. Now, we dig a grave. Sissy chooses a spot next to the train tracks, in the vicinity where Jacob had leaped out of the train, where he had met his unspeakable demise. The boys would have liked this, to be buried next to each other, if not in fact, then at least in spirit.

After we shovel the last pile of dirt, we stand silently. Thin wind whistles through the bare branches of the forest.

Sissy’s lips tremble. “I’m sorry, David. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

And she turns to me, buries her face into my jacket, and screams right into my heart.