Fiction

The wind whistled through the downy, feathery warmth of the swift’s wings, soaring like an arrow to accompany the swift on its wearying flight before dispatching into ribbons of currents that the swift utilized to ride the skies. A fierce, harsh cry echoed from its ebony beak, hooked talons arching through the hair, and the sonic echo rang through the empty air over the rolling quadrants divided neatly below.

The swift’s ancient eyes, pitch-black and haloed with steel-strong spirit, swept over the rippling points of the compass rose that transformed into four wild and bright territories. Beneath the grubby point of a human finger on a time-worn, crinkly map, this land meant none to those who were only eager to reap its resources, but to the swift soaring across the blue expanse of the empyrean, it was home.

Look – to the south. There lies beautiful, verdant Summer in emerald glory. Trees stand tall and proud, bark deep mahogany, leaves sprouting from every visible surface of every arching branch. Elegant are the carpets of endless green that ripple across acres of rich moist soil, smelling of ripeness and things long gone.

Somewhere in the distant future, a little girl will be seated in a compartment of a creaky silver train that rumbles along its tracks, occasionally stopping to spill forth passengers or bring aboard new adventurers in search of the next place to walk toward. She will be unable to keep still as the air grows warmer and the white-hot sun cooks the train’s weary shell past miles of deserted country until finally –

She disembarks the train, a small yellow bag in hand. Looks around for the hunched, waving couple standing by the door leading outside of the station, running over in delight. Skips into the pasture, climbs over the fence to lie with the cows and chickens, breathes in the smell of growing things, and learns to call this place which thrives in the scorched atmosphere of mid-summer heat, home.

“Dhudum, god of the summer and health, hear me.”

The swift tipped its wings and angled its path to the west, where Summer’s green began to recede, giving birth to deep ruby, dark tangerine, and golden yellow leaves that littered the ground like teeth from splintered rowan branches. Ah – this is Autumn. A gauzy veil of approaching chill hung over the cinnamon crunch of the forest floors, which twitched here and there with small, warm field mice. Nearby, the honks of geese rang by the swift as they flapped their wings, returning south.

Somewhere in the distant future, a young girl will be fishing by a large pond that is quickly beginning to chill as summer dies and fall returns to the countryside. Her small hands are enclosed within her grandfather’s big, wrinkled ones, and both pairs are grasped around a fishing pole. Inside of the brightly lit house, lights twinkle; the days are growing darker and shorter indeed. Winter is coming. But for now, autumn – the time of change, decay, and renewal – is enough.

The fishing pole jerks around violently, and the girl almost drops it, but her grandfather steadies her hands. Together, they haul a small carp onto land, and her grandfather drives a hook into its belly. The girl watches the fish wriggle and die, eyes dimming, and anticipates the onion and potato fried meal that this carp will provide.

“Now don’t forget, autumn is the season of survival,” her grandfather says to her as they walk across the grass, golden light burnishing the deep purple of oncoming twilight around them. “Our land, this land, it takes care of you as long as you take care of it.” He coughs, covering his mouth with a white cloth, but his eyes twinkle.

The girl nods and hopes that she will be able to remember this fleeting moment.

“Xivanke, god of the autumn and chaos, hear me.”

The north greeted the swift before it could truly descend into its frozen heart. A howling wind crisped with frost smacked the swift sideways, and it quickly righted itself before flakes of soft snow settled onto its feathers. The swift strained its eyes and thought it caught a glimpse of skeletal, cold-bitten trees bristling with barren sticks and knobbly spindles, peppered only by teardrops of gleaming silver shrouded with a layer of ethereal mist that wafted like steam off of the hard-packed, ice-slick ground. Winter was the time of death and darkness, and yet, the swift only saw a world that was just as alive as any of the others.

Somewhere in the distant future, a teenager will be sitting by the frost-laced window of her grandparents’ country house, a mug of hot chocolate clasped within her rosy hands, which are now significantly bigger than the ones that held that fishing pole. She is staring out the window, longing to run outside and roll in the snow, maybe catch a snowflake on her tongue and let it melt into a patch of icy water and satisfaction, but she remembers the stories her grandmother tells her; the wolf of the ice prowls outside looking for young women to snap up, blizzards come without warning to swallow up unsuspecting people, the ground is as thin as a sheet; with one step the ice will fracture and dissolve into knife-sharp shards. Stories that would not faze another child, but would frighten a girl who loves the worlds her grandparents create with soothing voices and dancing words.

Outside, it is a magical, wintery world, one she is forbidden to enter, but as her grandmother sets a plate of biscuits down in front of her, she finds that she is content to stay in the world she knows.

“Qorasil, god of the winter and thought, hear me.”

Pockets of green punctuated the snow, which began to melt in rapid sheets that rushed into a throbbing river of cool, fresh water. Brown, beastly bears snagged flapping salmon with hooked claws, stripping pink flesh from the narrow bones. All around the swift, flocks and gaggles of fellow avians soared toward the warm air as nimble buds uncurled, sprouted, and bloomed into pink cherry flowers, snapping daffodils, and long-petaled mums. A rosy light shrouded the chirping of newborn bluebirds, the sigh of rejuvenated oak trees, and the chatter of new life.

Perhaps this was the swift’s final stop, the end of its journey. It was as if winter had never come to freeze this place into drowsy darkness.

Somewhere in the distant future, two white coffins emblazoned with the golden cross and one with an American flag draped with great ceremony across the lid rest in the sweet spring grass. A small group of mourners clothed in deep black gather by the trees, where a funeral meal has been appointed, to grieve the loss of two full and rich lives. Visible over the tops of the trees is the beloved country house that has weathered summer flame, autumn wind, wintry storms, and spring buzz for generations.

Standing in black, a graduation cap clasped in both hands, remembering this, is a child becoming a young woman who lets a peck of salt dry on her cheeks. She knows the turn of seasons, generations of lifeblood, and cycles of leaves like no other; it is her blood. Her home. Her inheritance.

“I love you,” she says to the quiet calm of the spring air, wiping tears that start anew.

Tomorrow, she will take her first step into the unknown, of navigating the four ancestral corners of the world. Summer, fall, winter, spring.

Somewhere in the distant future, the young woman will grow up to preserve and protect the land her family has kept for as long as the leaves fall and the flowers bloom. She will face love, adversity, hunger, kindness, cruelty – but even when her hands have withered and her hair grays, she will remember what those who came before her have taught her: home is forever.

“But where is my home?”

            —asked the swift as it flew onward desperately, seeking a reprieve. The currents billowed like taut sails and carried it across the points of the compass rose, but none felt like its rightful place.

“Maybe there is no place for me out there.”

            Said the withdrawn swift as it glided through the air in search of a place to rest its weary wings.

“Maybe there is no such thing–

                                    as home.”

 

 

Lauren Kawamoto began writing when she was seven years old. To further her technique, she has attended several programs such as ATDP (Academic Talent Development Program) and BAWP (Bay Area Writing Project). She has additionally won the historical fiction section of her school’s Creative Art and Writing Contest, and been published in the Written Tales Magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

“Remember Trish,” my dad said to me. “She went out without a jacket and by the time we found her, she was frozen solid. It took a whole week to unfreeze her.”

“That’s great, Dad,” I muttered. Trish this. Trish that. That’s all I ever heard from him. Now you’re probably wondering who Trish is. Trish is my imaginary sibling that my dad made up to scare me into following the rules. As if one sibling wasn’t bad enough. When I was little it was funny, but now it’s just weird. I grabbed my backpack and walked out the door. It was Friday and I had school.

“Remember not to talk in class, James,” my dad called to me. “There was a girl named Trish and she talked in class so much that her tongue fell out and she couldn’t speak.”

“Ok. Whatever Dad,” I muttered.

“Don’t ‘whatever’ me,” my dad said. “You know, you had a sister once and she…”

I got on the bus before he could finish his sentence. My real sister, Maddy (not Trish) sat next to me.

“If I hear one more word about Trish,” I grumbled.

“I think it’s funny,” said Maddy brightly.

“Well, I don’t,” I said and the conversation ended.

Later that day, during science class, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. We were working with chemicals, but I knew that it could be important, so I raised my hand.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” I said. Once I had made it to the bathroom I picked out a stall and slipped in. After making sure I had put the seat down, so as to not drop my phone in the toilet, I unlocked my phone and checked my text messages. It was my dad.

“Be careful to waft when you’re smelling the chemicals. This girl, Trish once forgot to waft and her nose got so big, she could barely breathe.”
“Cool, Dad,” I sent and sighed. Texting me during school? He had gone too far this time.

I once again pocketed my phone, annoyed that he had interrupted my favorite class over this. Later that day, back home, I heard banging in the attic. I asked my parents if I could check it out, but my dad gave his response.

“You had a sister once and she wanted to go into the attic, but we told her no. She did it anyway and she got stuck up there.”

I sighed in exasperation, but the next day I heard the banging again. And the next day. And the next. Then, one day my parents said they were going to go on a short business trip, but they’d be back in the morning. Me and Maddy would be home alone until they got back.

“Don’t do anything reckless,” my dad said. “The last time we went on a business trip, Trish decided to play with the lawnmower, and she got so cut up, she actually lost an ear!”

“Dad,” I said. “The last time you went on a business trip was a month ago and the worst thing that happened was when I bruised my elbow.”

“Maybe if you had listened to my Trish stories, that wouldn’t have happened,” countered my dad. “You know you had a sister once,” he began. I nearly shoved them out the door. After they had left, I turned to Maddy.

“Let’s go up in the attic,” I said. “Mom and Dad aren’t here!”

“No!” said my sister. “You heard what Dad said. About Trish.”

“He made that up,” I sighed.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He sounded pretty serious.”

“Whatever,” I said. “You can be a scaredy cat if you want, but I’m going.”

“Well I’m staying here,” she said promptly and walked into the kitchen to grab a snack. I ran up the stairs, ignoring my dad’s warning that Trish did that and hit her head. I skidded to a stop in front of the door to my parent’s room. I opened their valuables drawer, grabbed the keys and left the room, ignoring my dad’s warning that Trish had done that and scarred herself with the key by accident. I unlocked the attic door and pushed it open, ignoring my dad’s warning that Trish had done that once and the door had crushed her hand. I climbed the ladder and turned on the flashlight. I looked around the room. I couldn’t find the cause of the banging.

Then I heard another noise. A raspy, choking sound.

I turned around. I was face to face with a horrid creature. As it came into the light I realized what it was. She had a huge bulbous nose, from the story where she forgot to waft. She had red, bloodshot eyes, from the story where she looked directly at the sun. Flecks of ice clung to her skin, from the story where she didn’t wear a jacket. She made another sound and I got a glimpse of what was in her mouth, or more accurately, what wasn’t in her mouth. She had no tongue, from the story where she talked too much. There was a huge bump on her head, from the story where she ran too fast on the stairs. Her body was covered in scars, from the story where she fooled around with the lawnmower. She wore nothing more than tattered rags, from the story where she didn’t do her laundry and had nothing to wear. Her gnarled hands extended towards me. One was deformed and crumpled, from the story where she threw open the attic door. The other had a long scar running across it, from the story where she stole the keys.

Then it hit me. She was here, because of the story where she went up into the attic without permission. Then I realized that I had done everything she had. I didn’t wear my jacket. I had talked in class. I had forgotten to waft. I had been reckless when my parents were away. I had run up the stairs. I had grabbed the keys. I had opened the attic door. I had gone up without permission. I had looked directly at the sun. I had neglected to do my laundry. She made a croaky chuckle and leapt through the air. Her chewed-on nails dug into my flesh, her maw opened wide, and she attacked. No one even heard my scream.

Years later…

“Remember to wear your jacket son,” Charlie’s mother, Madeline, called.

“I had a brother named James once…”

 

 

Henry Lomma is thirteen years old and enjoys writing, playing the clarinet, skiing and reading mystery stories.  He lives with his family in New York.

A chill breeze blows through the abandoned playground. Its cold fingers toy with the swings, casually rocking them back and forth. The wispy air flirts with a forgotten jacket on the bench, lifting it an inch or two before dropping it. Pale moonlight filters down the tube slide and casts eerie shadows that dance and twist, contorting into strange shapes in the night. The children’s bright world seems draped in a thin, supernatural gauze that pools in the sandbox and curls around the teeter-totter. A single, incandescent light bulb struggles against the strangling darkness, trying to penetrate the veil.

A man walking a dog comes down the sidewalk. The dog stops to bark at the preternatural playground. The man sees nothing, but the dog sees a young girl, white and diaphanous, riding the creaking swing set. The child locks eyes with the dog and laughs a thin, drifting laugh.

Slipping down from their undulating perch, she begins to walk toward the dog. The man, still seeing nothing, tugs impatiently at the dog’s leash, urging him on ahead. Although he doesn’t know why, the man feels a strange compulsion to leave this place. . . quickly.

The dog resists, approaching the playground fence instead. He presses his face to the metal grid, struggling in vain to smell the girl. A small, translucent hand reaches out, and a pair of pale lips giggle at the soft feel of the dog’s licking tongue. The dog noses the child as a signal for her to follow him down the slope. She complies, passing through the wires.

The man watches his dog’s actions with apprehension. He begins to pull sharply on the dog’s leash, yelling and calling in a sense of rising panic. The dog dawdles, appearing to guide something, or someone, down the embankment, away from the playground fence. The dog’s eyes are glued to something beside him. The man fumbles for his phone, clumsily turning on the flashlight app. He turns the light toward the dog. . . and sees two shadows on the grass.

The man screams as he bolts. The dog’s leash slips from his hand; he races in wild terror down the road, his shoes beating a fast tattoo on the asphalt. The dog looks in curiosity after his owner, wondering what there is to fear in this small stranger. When the dog turns back, the girl is gone. He spins around, whirling in a half circle, seeking through the gloom for a sign. There is nothing, no smell to trace, no shadow to spot, only a dark playground with a weak light bulb casting an anemic glow. The dog lowers his head, whimpering, as he sulks after his owner. His leash drags over the blacktop, fraying the edge of the nylon handle. A frozen gale whips past, ruffling the fur on the back of his neck. He’s sure he hears it whispering, “Thank you for being my friend.”

 

 

 

Adah is a high school senior with an addiction to Jesus and words. She has been homeschooled by her mother since Pre-K, and is looking forward to graduating in the coming spring. Adah is currently studying Creative Writing, and is excited to see how God plans on using her. Adah also loves horses (especially Appaloosas), spending every minute she can with them. Her main hobby is model-horse collecting/customizing, and her blog can be found at: spotteddreamsstudio.blogspot.com .

“Band, ten-hut!” exclaimed Karlee, calling the band to attention.

It was the last time for a lot of things, but it was the last time I’d be marching down the track to the stands. It was the last time I’d hear that call for attention before a game. It was the final day of being a section leader. It was the end.

It was so loud, yet I couldn’t hear a single thing. No faint taps of drumsticks, passing conversations from the crowd, not even the sound of my own steps. I was stuck in my head as I looked at my band for one of the last times. My gaze shifted to Carter, my beloved underclassman and co-section leader, whom I want to pass the reins onto after I graduate. I saw that look in his eyes that matched my own, it was almost as if the knot in my chest was just as bad as his. It was only a few seconds, but I looked away because that’s when the tears started.

My eyes burned with emotion, I couldn’t even pinpoint what I was feeling. There was something so sad about this moment, yet it felt so fulfilling. I wasn’t ever ready for change, I wasn’t ready for it to be my turn. But I knew it was inevitable.

As we marched in unison, it felt like time had slowed nearly to a stop as we approached the front of the stands. Before I knew it, the roll-off for the national anthem rang out, and I felt the volume of the snare drum rattling against my ribs. It was the same routine as every other game, playing the national anthem, following it up with loyalty, and then making our way to the end zone where we would play. It felt like every other game to everyone else, and in reality, it was like every other game. But I felt like I was losing a part of myself as I played those same songs I’d played only two weeks prior.

It seemed only a moment’s notice before halftime came around. I walked in close tracks behind Karlee, Carter, and Mateyka. It was like I was walking with my family one last time before going to college,— at least that’s what it felt like.

The halftime show felt like a blur in a way. I couldn’t even remember anything about it at the time. I stepped off the field. I only remember messing up once or twice, but it wasn’t anything too noticeable other than something I would notice.

We actually did it, for the first time, we finally performed the entire halftime show, and with few mistakes at that. It felt perfect, but what I was feeling wasn’t. It was far from perfect, I felt so empty in a way, like I was missing something. But that something wasn’t anything I could attain.

It was the longing to do it all again one last time.

 

 

 

 

Alec E. Damien is a seventeen-year-old student author and performer of the fine arts, Born in Mount Vernon, Illinois. He is working to get his high school diploma, as he plans to attend college to pursue a career in music production and writing. Once he had started writing in his early years of elementary school his writing career has only continued to evolve over the years. Further into his high school years, and now as a senior student at Mount Vernon Township High School, he plays a vital role in the art and music department, including being a part of the school marching band and symphonic band as a senior trumpet section leader and first chair. Being new to the writing scene, Damien plans to dive into genres of writing such as; Dramatic narratives, Horror, Thrillers, and Fictional narratives.

The night was humid and quiet. A blood moon peeked out from behind a curtain of silver-black clouds and the Milky Way was a shining sash across the sky’s breast. The low hum of dragonflies flitting about the fen was almost melodic against the silence of the heat.

The dark-haired boy sitting a few meters up the riverbank glanced up at the sky, brows knit. She should’ve been here by now.

Another boy of markedly smaller size stumbled up the bank towards his brother. His bare feet were dirty and his overalls were rumpled and distressed. “Jack-” he began, but was cut off.

“Not now, Billy,” murmured the older boy.

“But-”

“Not now, Billy.”

“It’s real important.”

Jackson sighed, halfheartedly brushing a lump of hardened mud off the right strap of his brother’s overalls. “What is it?”

The little boy grinned. “What d’you call a sleeping bull?”

“Now ain’t the time for jokes, Billy.”

“Come on, Jack.”

The older boy looked up at the sky once more, then back towards the darkened house. He wasn’t meant to be out so late, and Billy especially wasn’t. But the kid had insisted and begged and threatened to wake the whole house with his shouting, so Jack sighed and mumbled, okay, but keep quiet, and don’t bother me, to which the younger boy had nodded. Yet here they were – the moon was high, the girl was missing, and, try as he might, Jackson couldn’t get his kid brother to shut up.

“Fine. What do you call a sleeping bull?”
A grin spread across the boy’s face. “A bulldozer!”

Jack rolled his eyes but couldn’t suppress a slight smile. “You ain’t never seen one of those, Billy. Now back to the fen with ya – and don’tcha dare go into the creek!” He didn’t bother mentioning that he’d technically never seen a bulldozer either.

A few minutes passed and Jackson shivered. Not from the temperature, of course; the sticky heat was, if anything, simply uncomfortable. Especially on August nights like this one. No, it was the eeriness that was getting to him. The only light came from the red moon’s reflection on the creek. Even the fireflies weren’t flickering.

Jackson was eleven years old – full grown, he reminded himself – and he shouldn’t have been frightened by a little darkness. But the sudden absence of sound sent him shaking ever so slightly, and he suddenly found himself missing the incessant yammering of his brother.

“Billy?” he called into the reeds.

Silence.

He pushed himself up off his elbows. “Billy?” he repeated.

A tap on his shoulder and he let out a yelp, whipping around. There stood golden-haired Faye Clementine, a smile between her rosy cheeks and a little boy on her arm. “No need to shout so,” she grinned. “It’s just me. An’ look who I caught tryin’ to catch frogs without a net!” She playfully pushed Billy forward and he smiled bashfully up at her.

Jackson was silent for a moment, staring at her awestruck. Then he snapped out of it, shaking his head briskly. “I thought I told ya not to go into the creek.”

The little boy shrugged. “Faye,” he offered, “what d’you call a sleeping bull?”

She bent down to be at his level. “Dunno,” she replied, “what do you call a sleeping bull?”

“A bulldozer!”

The girl laughed aloud, and it sounded to Jackson like tinkling bells. “Have you even seen one of those, Billy?”

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Nah, he didn’t. I saw one, though.”

“Did not,” Billy retorted.

“Did too,” Jackson replied. “When we went to town last year and they were still workin’ on the steeple. Remember?” He changed the subject quickly before his brother’s cursed memory could point out that the steeple had been completed for nearly half a decade. “Anyways, get outta here. Go play in the reeds for a bit. Miss Faye here an’ I have something to discuss.”

Faye giggled as Billy shot her puppy-dog eyes, then kissed him on the forehead, sending him stumbling giddy towards the water again.

“Reckon he’ll go right back to catchin’ frogs?” she asked.

Jackson shrugged. “If he falls into the creek it’ll be his fault, won’t it? Momma’ll kill him before the current sweeps him away anyways.” He laughed to make sure she knew he was joking. “Hey-” he said as she moved to sit next to him in the dirt. “Ya sure you wanna sit on the ground? Ain’t those church clothes?”

Faye grinned and sat down beside him. “Naw. Mom’s got plenty more. She calls ’em Sunday Best, I call ’em scratchy bastards!”

Jackson was a bit taken aback but managed to squeak out a response. “Why you still wearing ’em this late, then?”

The girl let out a sound of indifference. “Needed to look my loveliest for a date with Jack Aiken.” She reached out with two soft hands to pinch his cheeks. “Let’s get them apples shinin’!”

Briefly shell-shocked, Jackson hastily gathered what was left of his wits and tried to look at her in a loving but not weird way.

She was silent for a second, before punching him gently in the arm. “Don’t lookit me like that. Y’know I’m just foolin’.”

“Yeah. Yeah, foolin’.”

There was a pause. She seemed lost in thought for a moment, before turning back to face him and grinning wide. “Wanna know why I asked you to come down here tonight?”

“Course. Wouldn’t want to muddy up my pants for nothin’.” He laughed again and it sounded vaguely like a mouse being squashed.

Faye gestured towards the sky. “T’sa blood moon tonight. There hasn’t been one in years. Know what that means?”

He shook his head.

“It means, Jackson Aiken,” she huffed as she steadily rose and offered him a hand, “That tonight the red fireflies are fin’lly done hatchin’!”

He took her hand and stood without actually putting any weight on it. “Red fireflies?”

She nodded, eyes wide, as if she and these fireflies were in on some otherworldly secret that no one else knew of. “Yeah. Red fireflies. They get laid at the end of every blood moon, and at the start of a new one, they get hatched.”

He watched her as she spoke. So… they’re hatchin’ now?”

She nodded again with a passion. “An’ we’re gonna catch some!”

“But Faye–” he spoke tentatively, never wanting to see her beautiful smile falter “–ain’t no fireflies out tonight. I been watching for a long time now and there ain’t even any light other than the moon.”

She looked at him peculiarly. “Don’t be ridiculous!” She laughed. “Why, there’s one now!” She pointed at something that Jackson didn’t see. “And there’s another!” She pointed at something again, and this time, Jackson could’ve sworn he saw something –  whether it was a gleam of starlight caught in the bright blue eye of Faye Clementine, or a streak of moonlight dancing across his vision, or truly a faint flicker of a red firefly, he’d never know.

“Come on, Jackson!” She danced down the riverbank, into the reeds. “Don’t even need to go into the creek!” She turned back once more to meet his transfixed gaze.

It must have been something, though not until he was much older did Jackson Aiken realize what. Something about Faye Clementine’s smile, something about the way the dragonflies were singing to him now, something about the moon smiling down on the two of them. Something about the August heat and the murmurs of the crickets, and her, and Jackson Aiken abandoned all hesitation.

And Faye grinned wide as he bounded down the riverbank to meet her, into the tall grasses of the fen and beyond, to catch red fireflies all through the welcoming warmth of the night.

 

 

 

Tallulah Conolly-Smith is a fourteen-year-old writer from Queens, New York. She will be attending Stuyvesant High School starting in September.

It was a cold and lasting winter that clutched Livingston in its skeletal hands. Bleak expanses of ice and snow stretched out from the settlement’s angular walls. Lean trees — dead, for now — reached their frozen fingers to the blue-grey sky and the lifeless block of clouds drifting slowly, impassively onward like a mass of corpses down a frost-fringed river. A cutting gale would rise and howl before lying and dying again. All was motionless but for the scratching, creaking bending of the trees. No beasts left tracks in the still and biting snow. No birds sang in the frozen air, so crisp that a breath brought with it slicing ice and pain.

The people of Livingston hadn’t been ready.

They’d learned to fight monsters; they’d learned how to hunt, and to survive. They’d fallen, again and again, until only the strongest among them remained. But the people of Livingston hadn’t been ready. They hadn’t been ready to fight weather instead of monsters, to plan farms instead of battles — to survive winter, rather than apocalypse.

Mayor Dreggs’s wife, struck by the irony of the situation, had been seized with a laughter which halted only with the final sputterings of her heart. Many had died already in these deadly throes of winter, and the necessary arrangements had been made for each of them before burial — and then, when the ground was too solidly frozen and the survivors too weak, before burning. Mayor Dreggs himself set alight the pyre for his wife, and was ashamed to feel glad for its warmth.

The people of Livingston hadn’t been ready.

But on the seventh day of February — not that any had been able to track the movement of the calendar — the silence beyond the walls was broken by the groaning and the creaking of a carriage’s slow approach. Those people of the settlement with enough energy to spare gathered along the top of the wall, their attention arrested by the dark antique carriage and the team of corpses which pulled it on. Eight decaying bodies, tough and rotting ropes tied around their peeling forms, were pulling their vehicle wrought of wood and steel slowly, immutably onward, across the snow to Livingston.

Confusion, disgust, fear, hate, and hope churned within the walls of Livingston in response to the strange carriage’s crawling approach. Finally Mayor Dreggs emerged from the dark confines of his home like a ghost among the living, and called two of his most trusted to his side. The three departed alone. The heavy gate built into the town’s southern wall slid shut with a rough clanging behind them as their feet sank step after step into the deep and stinging snowfall.

The world was silent bar the quiet crunch of threefold footsteps in the snow, departing from the north, and the eightfold tread of roving copses and the creaking groans of their antiquated vehicle rising to meet them from the long-disused highway far to the south. The air smelt of the cold sharp clarity of an over-frozen world.

And the three lonely figures trudged forward through the snow.

As the two parties neared, it became clear at last who directed these servile dead: a man sat along the bench at the carriage’s peak, wrapped in layer upon layer of coats and cloth, hands covered by gloves and feet shod in a pair of heavy boots. A wide-brimmed hat turned downward hid what of the driver’s face was not masked already by the scarves heaped about his shoulders.

Without a word the corpses creaked and halted, and the carriage rolled and slowed to a crackling stillness several dozens of feet away. Dreggs and his cohorts, though impatient and yearning for their homes’ walled guard against the wind, had learned how to wait. It was a skill honed and perfected by those who survived — waiting, and knowing when not to. Gently a light dustfall of snow began to descend, swirling, from the sky, and still the figure atop the carriage remained obstinately motionless.

Richard Dreggs would not be the first to falter. He stood just as still, just as resolutely unwavering, even as the gusts cut through his bones and the stinging snowflakes settled on his brow, beard, and hands — one more exposed to the cold than the other, resting as it was on the revolver holstered by his side. Raphael and Maria sensed his resolve, he knew, and followed suit. The snow built slow, soft, gnawing walls around their boots; still they would not falter. The eight corpses swayed gently from side to side, faces locked firmly upon the three even without the eyes to see, heedless of the dangerous cold and of the railroad spikes jutting from their bodies, holding their reins in place; still, they did not recoil.

And then the doors on either side of the carriage creaked firmly, finally open.

Abruptly a great clamor of clank and clattering broke the silence of the scene as two imposing figures leaned slowly out, one from each door. Dense iron helms were proceeded by suits of armor, and two men dressed in the full regalia of medieval knights stepped heavily down the carriage’s sides, landing and sinking simultaneously through the ground’s thick cover of snow. Absent was any indication of firearms; in their stead was a broadsword slung across each knight’s back. Each took a single step back and became as inert as the figure still waiting over the restless dead.

A pair of pale hands reached out from the vehicle’s dark interior and gripped the door’s frames, and slowly the fourth and final stranger emerged.

With deliberate, slothlike movement he seemed to unfold from his vehicle and step almost daintily down the rungs affixed to its side. Old black dress shoes sank into the frost, and the man twisted to face the three. His head was masked by a veil of dark, loosely-woven fabric hanging from his round and broad-brimmed hat. He wore a suit and tie, inkblack stains against the pure white wall of snow stretching out behind him. Reaching one arm back into the carriage, he withdrew a briefcase of ancient, cracked leather, and the two knights began marching in tandem as though signaled. As of one mind they shut the carriage’s doors, then strode forward, past the businessman, past the corpses, and halted before the three representatives of Livingston. Their cumbersome frames dug deeply into the snow.

Dreggs, for his part, did not move. He watched these strange proceedings almost impassively, determined now to play his part through to the end. One armored knight stood only a few short feet from Raphael, who now could see the webwork of scrapes, cracks, and chips in the suit; the dull, bilious gleam of old metal forgotten and resurrected anew. The helmeted man towered over him and stared straight ahead, a statue which would stand there, resolute, until the end of time. The masked businessman followed close behind, sombre veil swinging softly with the arrhythmic lope of his stiff-gaited steps and carrying his thin, black briefcase in one hanging arm.

He stepped just ahead of the two knights, then fell still.

The man in the suit stood, straight-backed, and pulled a small, crumpled card from a pocket and held it aloft, arm stiffly outstretched.

Maria and Raphael looked to their Mayor.

Dreggs himself waited. These strangers had delayed long enough; they could stand a few moments more.

A quietly howling wind arose and crawled whisperingly along the snow-clutched ground. Dark dead branches scritch-scratched in the forlorn breeze as the snow persisted in its cruel and unrelenting downfall. The two lines of shambling corpses swayed behind the businessman and his guards, ice collecting in the hollows of their bodies. The driver’s dark hat was being slowly painted white. Finally the Mayor straightened, snowdrifts tumbling from his shoulders as he shifted, and then trudged forward to take the card from the businessman’s still hand—

And stopped short.

A new chill crept up Dreggs’s spine; yet he could not tear his eyes away from that terrible hand.

The creased and crumpled card was held between fingers of smooth, unblemished bone; some few muscles, tendons, dried and mummified, stood dark against that bleached and skeletal hand.

Richard Dreggs let out a shaky breath and watched his body’s warmth dissipate out into the cold, unforgiving air.

And finally saw, at last, that no such breath escaped the man before him.

 

 

 

 

C.S. Ramsey is a hobbyist writer inspired by a love for science-fiction and fantasy, and driven by a critical nature. “Herald of the Horde” was written after ten seasons of “The Walking Dead” convinced the author that it was time for something new.