I
Dark stones laid among pale sand in the Undead Country. Jagged mountains of steep, offensive angles loomed as towers, and there were crags and dunes and stillness. And no greenness. Animals only had each other’s flesh to tear at night. They were a shadow bureaucracy, as the tribes neighboring the land would say— creatures of gruesome lifestyles and brief histories. Yet no screams came from the Undead Country, not even howls of regret.
He went by James Palace, and he looked almost thirty. He was shuffling along a sandy decline flowing between some weather-beaten rock columns, traveling alone, feeling sun stricken and nauseous, and he had been so since morning. Evening approached, yet the death march looked to stretch onward endlessly.
James’s horse had collapsed a few hours before and had been left behind. An armed gang was searching for him, and he knew they would not reason. He could only go deeper into that ungodly place: the Undead Country, where the lion ate eat the wolf and five wolves ate two lions.
The wind grew strong. A rising tide of shadow moved under his feet. Clouds rolled and blotted out the sun. A flash came, a brilliant light charging the silence with rattling dread and yearning. The rain would be cold, and James had nothing to catch it in, but in the silence, he smiled at the promise of thunder, laughed at the three second mark, and, at the awaited blast of cosmic gunfire, his flesh trembled. The jolt from the boom cleansed his spirit, and for a few moments his chest loosened, and he breathed slowly and deeply. Cold, pouring rain shortly followed.
The Undead Country had no shortage of caves. The one that James had found, to his relief, was unoccupied and, another boon, was elevated so that no water would flow in and pool. It possessed a few sandy spots, giving him a place to lie down, but only if he could escape his restlessness. He stripped off his drenched clothes. He felt like sprinting, but, then again, he didn’t. He paced the cave, running his hands through his hair, touching his face, and muttering to himself. “It’s not my fault!” he said. He told himself he was relaxed, almost as a command. His body, however, remained finnicky, rebellious, and clueless.
James lied down and placed his bag and revolver beside him. The effort of keeping his eyes closed distracted him from trying to go to sleep. His body curled inward, and he instinctually clasped his right knee. He heard himself growl and snarl.
“Please.”
Beyond, rain cast itself upon rocks in the darkness. His fist struck the earth, birthing a crater in the sand.
“Please.”
The rain continued, and James quieted down.
When he later rose, delirious, he was scared and angry at his friends for snitching on him. He had cheated on a test, though he didn’t know which one— chemistry, perhaps— and it was a fact the teacher would summon him to pronounce expulsion. He was going to be expelled! And he couldn’t even remember why! He never cheated, so why did he do it this time?
“There is no test! I’m no cheat!”
James realized where he was and lied down again.
When he awoke a second time, a man stood over him. For a second, James’s nerves electrified, but he kept still, caught frozen. No attack came, so he sat up. Then, collected enough, he placed his right hand on the revolver lying next to him. The man’s eyes met his and, wearing an honest smile, the stranger apologized. He stepped away, returning to the pot of coffee sitting on a portable burner near the cave’s entrance.
The newcomer was older than James, perhaps in his early fifties, though fit and of a smaller, compact build that denoted health and efficiency. His beard was long and his eyes were clear and sharp— a real frontier type. His loose, light robes also appeared that of a desert regular. Meanwhile, James’s dark, modern suit lay scattered in pieces, soiled by sweat and sand, while he sat nearby, his hair a mess and his eyes darting glances in all directions. Overall, his state suggested a lost and neglected dandy on a bit of a wild streak.
The coffee only took a short time to finish brewing, and by then the two men already were getting along, laughing off their brief standoff. The stranger called himself Alexander Castle. James asked why he travelled in the Undead Country.
“I’m doing a little hunting,” Alexander said.
The portable burner now held a frying pan, and upon it hissed a few strips of meat. Famished, James grew hypnotized by the bubbling and snapping of grease. The food looked good. Grabbing a pair of tongs, Castle turned over the strips one by one.
“Not much variety in breakfast. I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I also wouldn’t call this fruits of my profession. I don’t hunt wild animals, and even if I did, I wouldn’t bother coming out here for this fellow we’re cooking. Not a lion or a wolf, just some mongrel dog distracted by a horse carcass.”
James looked up at Castle. “Was it nearby?”
“Was that your horse?”
“Yes.”
“Oh…” the old man’s posture deflated. “I’m sorry. It’s not good to lose a… living thing.”
Both peered down, noticing breakfast was nearly done. James’s expression then soured, and his gaze drifted away, out to the cave entrance. He saw two large, flightless birds the locals called Rock Doves. One had a saddle for Castle while the other was loaded up like a pack mule.
Fixed on those birds, James began speaking. “Did you also…”
“Oh, no! That’s horrible just thinking about! I’m no vulture. I don’t touch what I haven’t touched, if you understand my meaning. That’s unclean.”
They left it there, since the meat was finished cooking. While Castle served the meal, portioning half for the only plate and leaving the remainder in the pan, James put on his shirt and pants, as they now had dried enough for wear. There were two forks but only one knife. James cut his meat up and then Castle cut his. Even if it was tough, the strips were evenly cooked and tasted fine. Aside from relief, James amused himself from not being as uneasy as he would expect while having canine. The meal went quietly, and after they finished, Castle began to smoke. He had a box of Eastern Blues— not for the faint of heart.
“So, what do you hunt?” James asked him.
“Monsters.” Castle exhaled a stream of smoke. “And who are you running from?”
“Hunters of men.”
“Ah, you’re an outlaw. Oh—” Castle held up his cigarette pack to offer James one.
“No thank you. I don’t smoke.”
“You don’t, eh? For me it’s a—” Castle chuckled, “Professional necessity.” He looked down contemplatively at the lit cigarette pinched between his fingers. “Out here, in a place like this, when I run out, it just wakes up the animal in me.” He looked up at James with a bold, wide smile, a sort typically reserved for a dark joke.
“It makes a killer out of me.”
“Is that right?” James leaned back, resting his elbows in the sand, and stared lazily at the cave ceiling.
“One hundred percent.” Castle replied. “But you, you’ve been a nuisance to the community, haven’t you? The fellow I’m after— my… quarry— he’s like that. He steals. Breaks into homes. And since he’s a monster, when he wakes the family up, they come out and see a mangled, seven limbed, three-eyed freak carrying off their sofa. Quite an affair, and most families only have one sofa, so it’s a real blow to the household as well. It didn’t take long for him to start robbing graves. That was too much for them, so they hired me to take care of the problem.”
“You’re gonna kill him?”
“One hundred percent.”
Conversation endured through much of the morning. In gestures and tones— ease, not just simple friendliness. They spoke being understood, knowing they were heard. They began with the surface things, such as Castle’s birds, Palace’s revolver, and the many wars going on. In those days, all sorts of clans, families, and tribes kept at each other’s throats, out there, somewhere. They even discovered they had a connection in the Corrington family, who had hired Castle as a monster hunter for a season while Palace fought for them in the skies in a Hussar Fighter Plane.
Being comfortable around someone, alone with them, with time to kill and nothing to lose, this presents an opportunity to really say something. Castle didn’t make a case for his request or dress it up with the gravity of a gentle, sensitive voice, but he leaned in, tossed his second cigarette in the sand, and said “why don’t you tell me your story, and I’ll tell you mine?” Palace agreed, and after several moments collecting his thoughts he began to recount his life.
James had only flown over his home country once. It was a great, gray face with many brownings, wrinkles, and flaws, bearing a long, black scribble called Rank River digging into its skin. His navigator, who was from a hilly, sylvan region, kept repeating how crazy it was that land could be so wide, simple, and hard. James, having never been confronted with this image while above, was similarly astounded, but he kept quiet.
For the early period of his life, James used a lot of “we”: “we would…”, “we were…”, “one time, we…”. His family lived in a small town on the edge of one of Rank River’s many bends, and when he was born the settlement had just turned fifty. There weren’t many families in the place, mostly just individuals who came and went, trying their hand at the gold resting in the surrounding badlands. They had all heard that it was just “waiting for the right man” to venture out and grab it. This, James guessed, was what had brought his parents out there, though by the time he could start remembering, they were running a general store and not prospecting. They were serious, withdrawn people, and James reckoned that he was for most of his life too. Both of his grandfathers were ministers, though he never knew them, and he took this as a reason for religion and metaphysical concepts appealing to him, despite them being found nowhere in the rest of the rough and wild folk of his hometown.
His depiction of life in this badlands town lacked things like age or chronology, rather, he presented it as a season, listing phenomena, routines, and highlights, presenting a condition rather than a story, saying lines including:
“We would take our camera up to the flats, looking for goats and antelopes. They’d gather at lonely bushes, and their predators, the king lizards, would bask in the sun.”
“There were ‘Golden Days’, when everyone would drop their work and head to the river with their pans. By the time I was old enough to go out with them, it was more of a holiday than anything. Those who took gold seriously by then lived way out of town with their mines, showing their faces only once every few months.”
“A few children lived in town, but none of us really trust each other— our parents didn’t really trust each other— even if we played together. We’d get bored, go out to meet the other children, and then stand around wondering why we bothered showing up.”
The place seemed an island. People certainly were fond of “marooned” somedays— one man would say it and others would echo: “We are marooned”. Those with money and connections would often grow bored and leave, but most were not so fortunate. A few people would gather in secret, as if conspiring for a jailbreak, but then they’d look out a window. They had many things to run from— stale gossip, smoldering regrets, uncertainty, and melancholy— but nothing to run to. For them, neighboring towns could only be just as small and lonely— harbors of sleepy, somber ruminations— and cities kept distant and alien, seeming unapproachable.
James’s most complicated adolescent relationship was with radio. When he had gotten one for his thirteenth birthday, he was thrilled, and he would spent late nights with its volume turned down low and his ear pressed against it, secretly taking in songs, jokes, and dramas. It was so ingrained in his routine that it felt essential, and evenings with its absence were restless ones. He loved music and stories, but as years passed, he acquired a bitterness towards his radio, even feeling captive to it and defensive at times. Listening to lyrics and narratives, he found the singers, actors, and poets were telling him about the chronology of human nature. At such and such a time, they said, he would start to rebel against his parents. At such and such a time, he would first experience falling in love, or that’s what he’d think until he’s left hurt and confused, and that too, comes at such and such a time. Then he would leave to go out on his own, and he would adventure, making friends, going on escapades, getting in trouble. James, a resident of an empty, stagnant country, one day evaluated his chronology and noticed that none of this had come into being. Musical and dramatic declarations of even vain infatuation were still foreign well past the age when he felt they shouldn’t be, and he felt shame. He would think there were too many love songs but never said anything, since he could only imagine being ridiculed. Something in promises of adventure and romance drew his hatred and pained him, but for his love of music and stories he let them hurt him. He thought he should hide his feelings while stuck in his childhood home and working at his parents’ store, but there was no one to hide these things from. The promises came from the voices of strangers, and the judgements from only imagined people and scenarios. This invited a second shame encompassing the first, but he never mentioned either to his family.
It wasn’t until the Corrington family came to town when James believed that he finally had chronology. They were looking for recruits for their conflict with the air gangs of the South. Planes by then were cheap and plentiful, and it was no secret that most villages were terrified of machine guns from above. Various organizations had formed around wandering and raiding with their craft, scouring the country for fuel, guns, and money. They never settled down or tried to rule, only looting and bombing the “poor dirty ones” below. Naturally, ruling tribes and families grew weary of these types, and they quickly organized their own bands of dogfighters.
The Corringtons’ representative saw in James potential. He was “educated and sharp”. And so, leaving his family behind, James became a pilot and a killer. He got to live in a city and have money to spend when there was time for it. This did not entail, though, some flourishing in his social life. His activities— reading, enjoying music, laughing at comedians— changed little, with only the scope of accessibility increasing. He would attend concerts and read in coffee shops alone, and he never seemed bothered too much by it. It wasn’t until the day’s end when reflection of his habits would gnaw away, and he would have to sit in his apartment, alone with the words in his head, until he was too tired to think anymore.
His superiors noticed James not only had good intuition as a pilot but also a deliberate mind: someone never frantic in the sky, never in over his head, and never taking a careless action. They liked that about him, since it meant saving fuel, ammunition, and, most important, his life. What they took issue with was his sometimes absent willingness to cooperate with others. Those who flew with him noticed that he treated his plane as an island or solitary vessel at sea. His compatriots’ words would reduce to mere noises from a machine, to entertain or be ignored like a song on the radio. But they realized he wasn’t a rebel, just out of touch, and he was too good to replace.
A brilliant violet color defining it, his plane was easy to spot. In time, it developed a reputation of being dangerous, even unbeatable in a one-on-one. Clan-lords and gangsters alike took special interest in him and got their spies to work. Secret pictures of him circulated, and a tall man in sunglasses following him to his apartment building convinced James to take a vacation. Unfortunately, he couldn’t shake his pursuers, and his bodyguard was shot in the night. Now, James was on the run, hiding out in the Undead Country until the Corringtons arrived to save him.
Up until the very end of James’s story, Castle paid close attention, looking directly at him and slowly nodding when appropriate. Then it was his turn. It was a rare opportunity to plainly present oneself to a new acquaintance, one that allowed a testimony to stand without fear of contest. Of course, there exists the temptation to embellish achievements or virtues, but people also carry a yearning to show their scars, especially ones acquired in childhood.
Alexander Castle was from one of the eastern cities, where his father was a favorite manager at one of the Prime Firms. The family lived comfortably and often mingled in the upper social circles of the sort only found in the East. Alex’s parents wanted to raise him right and could afford an expensive education for their son. They surmised a dream for him, but it carried a few blotches in its makeup, and, unfortunately, those had come from Alex himself. Emotional turbulence often overtook him on petty occasions, or he would say rather cruel things to other children without even knowing it. A wrong look from a student could lead him to lashing out. Simple assignment instructions from a teachers could bring him to tears.
A strange memory he had, one that still made him feel sorry, involved a girl who wanted to join in a game of tag. Her being rather shy and clumsy, he and his friends were unenthused towards the idea of her participation. So, Alex, in a very ordinary, if mildly impatient, tone, explained to her that no one wanted to play with her or be her friend. She ran off crying, and all Alex could think about was her telling and him getting in trouble. This materialized when her parents spoke with his. He received a very stern talking to, which, at the time, brought him terror. By then he was nurtured the idea that life was not fair. Others could upset him, and he would just have to sort it out on his own, but making someone cry meant that they’d tattle and he’d be disciplined. Adults and children often found him difficult and overly sensitive, yet he was still able to get good grades and maintain a group of friends, so while he gave his parents some stressful evenings, through the course of his childhood their hopes of him breaking out into society and achieving something remained within grasp.
Overall, one could say that Alexander Castle came from a “good” family and a “good” neighborhood, but also that he may have been moderately sheltered. His university years, however, were a time of great change and new experience. He was accepted and attended the same school that his father had went to. It was far away from home, though still in the Eastern Region. In a week or two on his own he was able to find some friends to burn his free time with— an interesting sort of young men, the types easily carried away by “expected conduct”: mature and restrained for the business and classroom scenes while wild and ruthless for parties. His friends were the sorts of fellows to exercise ruthlessly and measure their diets but also drink until vomiting, all when appropriate. The whole lot of them became frequent prowlers of uptown discos, as they could afford to be, but Alex could find within himself no great discoveries while falling into this life. It felt illusory and derivative. Having parents who could afford to rear their child on film, he had developed a vision of the dazzling, unrestrained spirit of youth, and what reality presented seemed only a comedic imitation. Perhaps it was the lack of an orchestra underpinning a carefully selected progression of images— sometimes masking and reduction produces a more substantial identity than the whole “truth”.
He would hold his tongue when a pal offered him a glass and told him to “enjoy”, neglecting to tell him what was in it or where it came from. When the music was bad and giving him a headache, all he could do was close his eyes, shake his head, and keep quiet. Dancing bothered him most. Bad dancers were shameless and good ones vain. Yet he could never deny that he was just as swept up in the commotion like everyone else. The disco took hold of his body, his words, his thirst, and his motions, but there endured a corner of his mind standing apart from the rest of him, stewing in cold, disgusted reflection over the many spoiled children in the room pretending they were movie stars.
With women his behavior was not unlike his while among peers— he indulged but not without some detachment and repulsion. His generation was not one of rebellion— that was for the parents, who when younger bucked the stuffy rules and superstitions and embraced freedom. For the children, who were given the neat, easy, smoothly paved road, there was being sane and grateful for opportunity and accessibility.
Alexander was most vain when alone with a young woman, but also most anxious, annoyed, and self-critical. He discovered that it was cynicism which soothed him best, and it felt good not only to laugh and shrug at his own stumblings but also at the evening’s companion being “taken by the moment”. Cynicism was strong and practical, as it not only cloaked his other impulses but provided service in pushing them down for being “unacceptable”.
Cynicism had crossed the line only once, but once was enough. It happened after an evening spent at a particular young professor’s million-and-a-half franc penthouse. Of course, this type of residence was unapproachable for an academic’s salary; the man, rather, was tethered to his parents’ money. While immodest and wanting to be the university spectacle, he could not escape being a comical one, as, many observed, he was overeager to step into social circles of students. Often, he would invite favorites over, to “take a break from campus”, and he would tour them through his home and give chats over wine. Alexander and his friends would label this professor as one of the ”Extraordinary Mediocres”.
Alexander shuffled at the rear of the troop of students the young professor herded about his little palace when he noticed a new face beside him, a girl’s. He leaned over and slyly murmured in her ear “a few big rooms— what a sensation”. His timing was good, and he got a laugh from her. A minute or so later he learned her name was Janice, though she preferred Jane, and she loved both the university and the city. The evening progressed without many surprises; people chatted and smiled as they usually did when comfortable and treated. But at the gathering’s end, several did notice, with brows raised and lips pursed, Jane leaving in Alexander’s car despite not having arrived in it.
An amber glow reflecting off dark clouds presided over a dark tree line. Parallel lay a gravel road, and a ways off was the city, still awake in the late hours of the night but too distant for disturbing the car parked in the grass. Alexander and Jane were slouched next to each other on the rear bench, neither speaking. It had been ten minutes, Alex guessed, since he had cracked open the windows, and the glass was still fogged up. He lost his belt on the car floor, but he wouldn’t even bother looking for it until tomorrow morning.
Jane’s fingertips gently traced along the veins of his forearm. She slowly leaned into him, pressing him against the car door. A soft, steady, warm, and sweet exhale from her actualized within the quiet moment. Alex felt her head rest on his shoulder and her fingertips travel down to the palm of his empty hand. He was looking out the window; his other hand gripped the door handle. A headache was coming on, which he dreaded enduring the next few hours, and, worst of all, she was still touching him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
She lifted up her head. Her tone lowered. “You look unhappy.”
There was a pause. Alex, with his left index finger’s knuckle, drew a circle in the fogged glass, seeming inattentive, and then drew another. They kept silent and still for a few moments, until Jane spoke again.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Alex cracked open the door, turning on the car light overhead. He looked her directly in the eye. She withdrew her hand from his and retreated to the other side of the bench.
“Did I make you uncomfortable? I’m sorry.” Her voice weakened.
Alex sighed. “I don’t know how I feel,” he answered. “I don’t feel happy.”
His mind, as he would describe to James, descended into a “dark place,” and he asked Jane questions aimed to hurt her. Keeping the car light on, so she could not hide in the dark, he first asked her why she was so “easy”. She gave no reply and looked away. The questioning went on.
“Do you not care about that sort of thing? Do you not care where you are or who you’re with? Do you not care about me?”
“Are you out of your element? Or, is this a regular thing for you? How many others are there besides me? Few? Many?”
“Were you abused? Neglected? Do you hate your father? Is that an ignorant question? Some girls I know are fleeing trauma, while others are pinned by it, which are you?”
He finished with this simple remark:
“You know, you stink, and now I stink from touching you.”
Jane never answered. She was turning her back to him, her brow against the glass.
She did not move when Alex got back in the driver’s seat and started the engine. When he parked the car in front of her dormitory, she left it without saying goodbye.
The day after, Alex skipped classes out of feeling sick. He spent hours tossing about in bed, not eating much, and ruminating over the previous evening. In his stomach was something akin to indigestion, while his throat seemed tight and inflamed. It was a turbulent meditation on poison: she had poisoned him, he had poisoned her. “Poison” clung to his thoughts, and, though he never felt especially enchanted with his friends’ lifestyle, poison stole from him compulsion to partake in their company. They saw less and less of him, and graduation for Alex turned out to be a lonely affair.
With degree in hand, Alexander Castle entered civil service, taking an appropriate post for a fresh graduate in the city where his father had started off. A few months later, he transferred to a frontier settlement, and by the time his first year anniversary for graduation arrived, he had left civil service entirely, joining the crew of a fishing vessel. For years, he would take on whatever sorts of trade the frontier would offer him until finally dedicating himself to monster hunting, which took him to the most remote lands. In the deepest holdings of wild terrain he drifted, with visits to cities and towns as relapses with “poison”.
Chronology mirrored a chess game for Alexander: beginnings offering limitless opportunities while one or two pivotal encounters settled a logical hedge around what is and what may be. Growing old, requiring greater distance from civilization, and solitary confrontations with beasts all made him anxious for the final encounter.
When both Alexander and James had finally concluded their tales, a melancholic silence drew out for several moments, yet a warmth buzzed in the air, and satisfaction came. Laughter ushered from one and then the other; laughter progressed until they grew tired of it.
II
Ventures into the deeper regions of the Undead Country entail arrivals on untimely scenes, arrangements of elements well removed from the past or present of a desolate place, with all things crumbling together beneath the sun and the wind. Now beyond the obelisks and mountains, James and Alexander traversed flatter, yet ever harsher, country, where deep banks of sand neighbored hard, cracked earth. The rock doves grew anxious, making small cries and jerking their necks at distant falling rocks or sudden gusts. Before long, the fear also spread to the men, as several times they spied the dirty bones, horns, and fangs of ancient reptiles littering on the ground, exposed to the open air.
Later on, however, James and Alexander were pleasantly surprised by the sight of dark, stunted, gnarly trees with spiked auburn leaves— their first discovery of vegetation. Getting closer, they suddenly froze, as lying in the ground was a massive black serpent. Its head was as wide as a man’s height, and its body, which winded and sprawled for hundreds of yards, laid submerged in the sand, forming grooves and hills in the desert. Two dark eyes cast upon the travelers remained unwavering. Indeed, the whole creature kept wholly motionless.
“Is it dead?” James whispered.
Alexander didn’t bother lowering his tone. “That,” he said, “or we’re mice too scrawny for chasing.”
The dry skulls of behemoths and scaled raptors, their limbs long departed, propped among the roots of hardened, twisted vines, laid opposite the descent of the great amber orb, all which Alexander and James turned their backs to.
On the second day they found the riverbed, and the men and birds leapt into it. Alexander said that the monster of his contract was the sort which clung to vanished bodies of water such as this, likening itself as the river’s severed consciousness. Continuing down the pale road flanked by erosion, their glances shot upward, alternating left and right. Dotting the rock formations on either side were dark caves and crags.
“Could those be lizard dens?” James asked.
“Maybe.”
The trek down the riverbed lasted for majority of the day. Nothing descended upon them, nothing emerged from the ground to seize their ankles, nothing confronted the hunters’ march save one object. It appeared distantly after a tight curve in the path. Looming far ahead was an obsidian arc spanning either edge of the dead river. As they closed in on it, they absorbed a rush of dread and awe at the hard, resolute structure; its curvature perfect, geometrically marvelous. Its sides bore reliefs of assembling figures with spindly proportions, claw-tipped fingers, and elongated skulls. As they passed under it, both Alexander and James trembled from the eeriness of standing in the bridge’s shadow. Superstitious flushes came as well, deep in their minds, achings and groanings over whether they were cursed for trespassing. As the bridge fell out of sight, twilight descended again, and they found an underpass to spend the night beneath. Alexander said that the bridge meant they were close.
The riverbed now sank deep into the earth. Alex and James encamped beneath a long overhang and sat around the portable burner cooking the evening meal. The rock doves stood close by James. As time had passed, they had grown accustomed and even fond of him, first permitting, later requesting, him stroking the feathery down along the front of their throats and gently patting their heavy bills. Their low humming as they nudged their brows against his hand never failed to make him smile.
Alex had removed his cigarette box and shook it— only one clattered within.
“This is it for me,” Alex said.
“I still don’t understand why you put yourself through this.”
“Hmmm… I really don’t have a good explanation myself.” Alex chuckled to himself. “No matter, by tomorrow afternoon my head will likely start spinning. That’ll be fun.”
The poised constellations shown proper, spared from electric suffocation, and for the creatures gathered in the riverbed, air of the desert night delivered a specific, biting satisfaction on the intake, as cold air typically does. Alex had his gaze fixed on the burner’s glow and leaned in to catch any heat emanating from it.
“You still on for tomorrow?” Alex asked James. “You’ll be closer to it than me.”
“I’ll be fine.” James reared his head assuredly along with his answer. “If I have a concern, it’s if our guns are enough. I’ve only hunted animals before.”
Alex chuckled. “Oh, we’ve got the firepower. He might put on a show, but he’s still just flesh and blood. Getting used to the sight of him is the only tricky part.”
The old man took out his last cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, and tossed the box out into the dark. The several clicks from attempts at his lighter went beside the sizzling of grease.
“I really appreciate your help,” he said.
“Anytime.” James’s hand performed a cavalier wave. “You’ve got very little competition out here.”
A lone flame apparated from Alex’s clutches. He lit his last cigarette to his mouth and stood up, turning away from his companions. He stepped out into the dark. Though his figure was a challenge to precisely discern, James believed he made out Alex peering upward to the dead river’s cusp. Above, there was a canopy of lights, much of it, though, obstructed by shadows of sand, soil, and stones— such was their meager, subterranean perspective.
James yawned. A moment later, he heard Alex say: “Don’t worry about sleep. If your body wants to pace the night away, just let it. You’ll get what you need before tomorrow. You can be sure of that much.”
Dinner finished before the last cigarette did. James didn’t touch the food until Alex exhaled his last stream of smoke. He threw the butt away. No one heard it land.
The depression left from the dead river was now so great that it became a deep ravine. At its end was massive crater, which held at its center a colossal mound of junk. Dented and splintering chairs and sofas, rusted and holed scrap metal, faded curtains, ruined toys, chunks of plaster wall, bits of fencing, taxidermized animals, broken doors, and other trash heaped upon one another formulated what Alex had referred to as their prey’s “nest”.
Morning just started. Alex had ascended up to the crater’s edge and now laid there on his stomach, eyeing the spire of trash. James sat concealed among the boulders and rubble situated near the enclosing precipice. Both waited the morning through noon, staying quiet and motionless.
At early afternoon, the monster appeared. It was a large, gray thing carrying itself in a skulking, asymmetric gait. It had three lanky, arachnoid legs sprouting from the lower half of its narrow torso and three limbs similar in length and joints rooted in its hunched back. The seventh limb— a pale, scale covered arm ending in sharp talons— sat right beside its head. Its head vaguely possessed an apelike structure— human though with a reduced cranium— but also had three eyes and a large, low-hanging, macawesque beak.
The creature’s locomotion seemed gawky and ungainly, though it did not once stumble while navigating the crater’s edge and among the rubble scattered across its floor, even while holding aloft a red salon chair. It did not notice the two hidden figures watching it: the man above with the long rifle and the man below with the heavy revolver. Step by step, it pressed closer to its mountain of junk, and, arriving at it, began ascent. The being was sure to neither loosen what was already part of the nest nor dropping its imminent addition. The claws of its limbs deliberately clasped spokes, rungs, chair legs, and debris edges, all while performing a delicate balancing act. Indeed, there was a lackadaisical grace about it; an off-kilter mountaineer.
The monster was about two thirds to the top when there was a rifle crack. The sound echoed off the crater walls and through the massive emptiness they enclosed.
At first, the creature looked paralyzed, clutching tighter to the heavy chaise beneath it. After a few passing moments, its torso began heaving, an odd, whimpering croak emerged from its beak, and, finally, a few spasms overtook it. The monster lost balance, and it fell to the earth, taking with it both the salon chair and the chaise. Then, two more gunshots— this time from the revolver.
The creature laid on the earth, evoking groans of pain with every struggle to move its snapped, emaciated limbs. It laid as a gothic ornament dropped on the rocks. A pool of blood underneath spread. Its head bobbed and tilted, until, unannounced, it heaved abrasively for a time. Brief seasons of panic and daze passed alongside the recurring, fading to stillness as the blood ran out.
James waited a fair distance from the carcass for Alex to come down and join him. When he arrived, the two approached the monster’s body together. There was initially tense silence among the two, walking side-by-side, but a compliment from Alex on James’s shooting broke it. After a bashful acceptance, James complimented Alex’s shooting. Tension eased.
As they closed in on the body, Alex looked upward to the crest of the hill of junk. He lightly sighed.
“There was that moment,” he said. “You know, that moment— after it let go and before it hit the ground, that moment— you could feel the job wrapping up, even if it still hasn’t, even if the nastiest part is still ahead. Then there was that furniture crashing— music to the ears. It satisfies. We can just switch our minds off and let events play out. No more high stakes for us.”
In a moment, the pair stood over the Monster of the Undead Country. James was befuddled over how natural and material the thing was to his eyes. The Monster which had resided in his thoughts was like a dark spirit, not merely flesh and blood. Was the monster born from human notion alive beyond its cradle? Was there a second Undead Country in his galaxy? One more perfect than the first?
Alex revealed a large, wide knife. “Our word won’t be good enough, of course,” he said. “And we ought to do our part to keep the taxidermist off the streets. The head’s for proof. If you’d like a souvenir, you’re welcome to anything else.”
He laughed. “Or, maybe only take a memory— the thing stinks like hell!”
James turned away as Alex began to work on the decapitation. His gaze drifted to his right, to a particular element of the nest-horde: the backrest of a gaudy chair, something he supposed more appropriate in the collection of a lethargic widow and not a desert ghoul’s. Its cushion had patterns of tulips red and gold, whose stems and leaves delicately entwined with one another, set against sky-blue. Blue— and green— held him, enraptured him, dulled his eyes to red stone slabs and ivory dust, sundered his ears from the “nastiest part” of his companion’s labor. He could imagine the fabric’s smell while it resided in an old, country home: a benevolent, nostalgia-traced mustiness often sitting in the company of baroque, ivy-laced silver trays and ginger tea. Out here, the chair likely smelled of nothing, and awakening within James was a yearning for a beautiful soul, a sensitive demeanor that could perceive the drowned moss of life’s well, a capacity to fawn for and weep over the silver, ginger, and tulips of a conjuring’s recollection.
Alex groaned. “It’s so evil! I don’t know if I can even call it a stink. And I told you I’d have a headache by now. Guess who’s right? And this isn’t helping one bit.”
Something in the air dominated over any odor the mountain of garbage could produce. It had acute rottenness but also was queasily chemical, overwhelmingly pungent, like, as James entertained, what lonely arcanists would have used to preserve their jarred salamanders. At first, he struggled to breathe, but, eventually, he developed tolerance. He turned around and saw Alexander standing over the severed head and its body, wiping his knife off with a rag.
“Even just from standing near it… I’m going to take the longest bath after we get out of here.” Alex dropped the bloodied rag onto the toppled chaise. He looked at James.
“Could you get the sack and hold it open for me?”
“Sure, just a second.”
The head was bagged and hung from the side of supplies-carrying rock dove. A dark spot was already forming in the cloth’s bottom. Alex and James left the nest behind immediately. Rather than walk along the riverbed on the return journey, they decided to walk beside it. The sun hung low behind the pair; ahead, the sky progressed from amber and pink to violet and indigo.
James could see dark spots rise from the earth and flutter about in linear or elliptical tracks. He felt more solitary watching them, their flightpaths lulling him to an isolated but refreshing state of mind— micro-aviators of twilight. Alex said they were scarabs, that they were “bottom feeders” and “the filthiest revelers”.
The older man complained of his headache growing worse. He would huff and kick the dust, wondering aloud why he puts himself through this “dull, senseless gauntlet.” It seemed to James that as Alex’s headache worsened, his vocabulary grew more dramatic though his tone increasingly morose.
Some moments, James caught Alex stealing glances at the bag, while others, Alex caught him.
Vegetation, dry, brittle, and gnarly, grew on the wayside which had before been obstructed from view. After they found a suitable place to camp— beside another rockface with an overhang to not feel exposed— they decided to gather some of it together for a fire to celebrate a job well done. The brush was remarkably easy to uproot, as if the ground beneath it died and left it loose to shrivel and stagnate. The fire they made burned hot, grew fast, and crackled incessantly.
There was a pleasant dip in the evening temperature that brought clarity to the air and to breathing it. The celebratory flames were, for James, a mysterious lullaby for the eyes— utterly familiar if withholding some secret tradition. The usual slip into a mellow haze eased him and made his eyelids heavy. He took a deep breath and looked around. The peace emanating from the fire reiterated in the land and the sky. Pristine lights above, starry paragons of constancy and luminescence eternal, and, far across and beyond, shadowy figures of slumbering monoliths both in syncopation promised a greater orchestra at play than human, reasonable eyes and ears could appreciate.
The country surfaced a memory of James’s that occurred to him from time to time. On occasion, the Corringtons would lend his service to other families. One in particular hailed from a faraway region called Indigo Five. They invited in James a characterization entwined with veritableness, integrity, and courtesy— to a crime family’s limit— and they made sure to voice appreciation for his work and respect for his craft. Within their walled estate was a little garden with no greenness, a simple plane arranged with sand and tall, grey stones with positioning governed not by imperial mathematics but a more intuitive, emotive logic; a spiritual assembly. All according to his untrained eye. Perhaps, he mused, it was rather silly to connect the gardens of Indigo Five with the Undead Country, but “seeking” was another possibility, and honest seeking was good and serene, like the garden, like the land.
Maybe the garden had been substandard in its composition; truthfully, he did not know, and as underqualified as his eyes may have been, how much more would be his distant memory! But, as the saying goes, nothing’s perfect, and surely all gardens contain flaws and struggles? Even the most regal, sublimity boasting line of flora bears touches of weeds, pests, and blight, doesn’t it? So the question struck him— what was the weed of stones?
The bagged head rested at the edge of the firelight’s ring, half-gripped by the shadows of the world. Alex, who sat near it, twisted his posture to gaze out at what countryside remained detectable. He looked tense to James, and he had not said anything for a while. Alex straightened himself out and turned back to the fire. James saw a deep scowl on his face.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Alex grumbled. After, leaning forward, he brought his fingertips to his temples and made several failed attempts at answering. He would inhale deeply and try at something but then immediately clam up. Alex bit his lip, and he rubbed his eyes. Emanations of an inner boiling came in little, spasmic gestures in the hands and face, until Alex appeared attempting to restrain himself, though this too failed, and he rose.
“How do I put it?” he was now stepping away from the fire. His right leg swung back for a steady, deliberate windup for a kick in the sand. He made sure to keep the sand’s trajectory away from the fire and James. Alex recomposed himself.
“He lets us forget,” he said. “We can’t keep our stomachs settled, and He lets that too. He lets us go in circles.”
He seemed to stop and ponder something, and a brief, unmistakable pensiveness overtook his demeanor, only for him to fidget and pace, with James still observing, and ultimately, again, stray from the firelight, going out, his motion becoming lost in the night.
What James witnessed, he believed, was a dialogue in a man between death and dependence, a severed head and an empty box, cutting short and running out.
Suddenly, there was a shout: “Please!”
Following was not quite an echo, but rather a lingering wane without reverberation. To James, it resembled a line from a stilted dress rehearsal. There was volume; volume not solitary, but volume and discomfort and hints of second-guessing.
James heard a rock collide and with larger boulders, and he assumed Alex had thrown it in fury.
“I mean it!”
How would Alex have fared in the Undead Country alone? Would there have been yelling and fits? Was what played now only performance and socially motivated? Naturally, James hoped that he was a good presence, and that there was a reason for his company. Yet he felt saying something at that moment would only worsen things.
“I mean it!”
The abundance of stars shone especially clear tonight. Among the thousands was a distinct cluster of three that which James recognized. They were part of a greater constellation whose remainder slipped his mind. Nonetheless, from what he perceived was proof a hero stood above, even if his form remained mysterious. There was a hero, and there was a river, and there were birds and fishes and serpents and lovers. Indeed, there was an Olympus above and an Eden. He had only forgotten how to read them. Restraining a smile, the thought dawned on him that, given time, they would someday forget all about him, too.
“We’re all allowed to forget,” he said.
But the head remained. James wished to be rid of it. If only— it was theirs so long as they remained guests of the Undead Country. Time would carry on, as would their march, and both would carry them to an exit and a reunion with more peopled lands, with avenues, bell towers, door posts, and balustrades. Then there would be relinquishment of the thing he hated so much. It would pass hands— to sheriffs, to anatomists and zoologists, and, following payment, measurements, and bookkeeping, the thing would be given off to the taxidermist for stuffing and for prop making; the metamorphosis would end, and the thing would end as an item to be sold or donated. Perhaps the trophy would hang in a cantina. James could picture it looking down at the bar of a small-town restaurant, where locals and passing-throughs spent an hour or two of their evening or afternoon. They all might ask where it had come from, what the creature had looked like, or who decided to add such an eyesore to where they ate and drank. Someone might know, but how long would they stick around? Maybe on the plaque would be a little brass plate etched with who shot the monster and where and when they did, but such inscription would likely be so small and the trophy hung so high that the words would exist illegible. Yet there was a chance that the drinkers and diners might spy the shape of gold under the three eyes and the beak and in their imaginations lightning would strike uninhibited, and they would be swept by thrilling scenes of hunters in pursuit of the grotesque beast, spurred by risk and daring. But such fantasies abide in transience, as frost on petals. The head of that great beast would be there to be looked over. For all the busy people below, there would be nothing left to see.