Hanged Man's Road Chapter 5
The Morning
Paul sat in the warm glow of the campfire, listening for changes in the survivor’s breathing. A lonely watch. Alan had fallen asleep quickly after his wounds were cleaned, snoring softly. Paul marveled at the young man’s ability to simply fall asleep, any fear lingering from his battle with the survivor discarded without discussion.
But Paul was a jumble of nerves. His thoughts swirled in an anxious storm. He questioned his choices, weighing his intent against the inherent danger of his decisions. What had he really done, bringing this man into their care? Was there a cost lurking behind this need to do what he wanted to call “the right thing?”
He cradled the man’s knife in open palms, as though he were weighing it. The dried blood had been removed. The tuft of animal hair was untangled from the serrated teeth and were cast into the fire where it shriveled, darkened, and burned until it was no more than ash. The blade reflected the firelight, glowing a murky red. He wondered if it was truly clean—if the blood had really washed away. It was too dark to be sure. That would have to wait for daylight.
The wind exhaled. Paul closed his eyes for a moment to listen to the night, forgetting the man in the wagon. The trees rustled and chattered, beckoning him to lay back onto his bedroll and stretch out. His arms, legs, and back were tired. His joints ached. His muscles were sore.
He had worked hard in that field and now he was feeling the strain. In the end, his exhaustion was no match for the creep of a long night, quiet in the dark except for the fire’s crackle, which begged him to let his eyes rest a moment longer. Whatever thoughts came to him as he lay in the dark were lost when he drifted into sleep.
Unknown hours passed, and he woke with the abrupt dread of a man realizing how vulnerable he had left himself and Alan. He blinked away the fuzzy delirium that clung to the edges of his awareness to face a bright and vivid morning. The fire had died, but the summer sun was high and warm. Alan was a heap across the fire, rolling over with a muffled moan. The horse and two mules breathed noisily in their refuge among the trees. He heard the rapid flapping of a bird taking wing nearby, but he did not see it fly. He did not look. Everything seemed fine. Normal. Untouched.
But he was uneasy. The wind shifted and there was an unusual chill despite the hot sun. He rubbed his empty hands, frowning at the absence of the knife. Panic creeped in. Where had it gone? Alan was still asleep on the other side of the fire. Was the wounded man still in the cart? Paul could see the wagon, but he was too far from it to see if the stranger was still inside.
He searched the area around him for the knife, tossing aside his blanket, the bedroll, and groping around the leaf-littered road. Then his hand grazed the sharp blade, and without thinking, he grabbed it eagerly. He failed to grasp the handle, and the blade sliced a razor-like cut across his palm. He dropped the knife, cursing bitterly.
He looked at his wounded palm, wondering how he could be such an idiot. The scratch was little more than a thin red line with small droplets of blood beading up. He closed his hand into a fist and opened it again, feeling a sting that radiated across his palm. The line darkened as blood seeped from it more freely. There was a faint odor coming from his palm that reminded him of sickness and vomit. Paul took the knife with his uncut hand. He glanced toward Alan, still sleeping, oblivious to Paul’s stupidity.
The bandages and supplies he would need to clean the cut were kept in the back of the wagon, next to the wounded man. He walked toward it, the knife held low, nearly hidden behind him. Every step seemed louder than it should have been. His boots scuffed against the concrete, scratching against the quiet morning. His breathing was obnoxiously loud. Deep and hollow exhales were followed by an intake of air that almost whistled with dry wheezing.
As he reached the wagon, his empty hand reached out to it, trembling. Alan’s sharp whisper cut through his thoughts, “What are you doing?” Paul turned to see Alan standing, his gun belt in hand, eyes wide with suspicion. “What do you think you’re doing, Paul?” The kid’s voice was no longer quiet; it was filled with accusatory anger.
Paul glanced down at the knife in his hand and realized how menacing he must look. “Nothing. It’s not what it looks like. I just hurt my hand. I need some bandages.” He showed Alan the cut on his palm, keeping his voice steady. He tucked the knife back into his belt and held up the other hand as well.
Alan relaxed slightly, lowering his gun belt. Paul breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to the wagon. He froze. The survivor stood there, amber eyes wide with a strange hypnotic fury. He smiled at Paul, a greedy mouth displaying sharp yellow teeth, bent in crooked and bizarre angles that gave the man a wild and evil look. His black tongue slid across the lower lip in a slimy caress.
Paul’s heart raced as he fumbled for the knife at his belt, but it wasn’t there. The man held it. He raised his wounded arm, bringing the blade high. The bandages fell away, revealing torn flesh filled with pus and riddled with flies feeding on the rot that had settled in. The stink of infection, like spoiled meat, filled the air.
Paul watched as the survivor brought the knife down, plunging it into the fleshy area where his neck and shoulder met. The blade burned into his flesh and blood began to flow. He could only look at the man he tried to save, as his attackers mouth opened hungrily and he leaned forward and wrapped his teeth around Paul’s throat.
He couldn’t scream. All that came out was a weak and hissing gargle. He tried to raise his hands to his neck to pull himself away from those animal teeth. But something was wrapped around him, pinning his arms to his body and enveloping him in a python-like snare. Unable to move his limbs independently he flexed and pulled with the whole of his body, writhing desperately to free himself.
“Paul! Paul!” Alan’s voice was full of panic, but he was close.
Something pressed onto his legs and shoulders. Someone’s hands. He was being held against the ground. When did he fall to the ground?
“Paul! Stop wiggling, damn it. You’re all twisted up.”
Then came a slap across his cheek and a flair of sharp pain. Paul’s eyes opened and he was staring into Alan’s face. The kid was sitting on him, roughly straddled across his chest, rubbing the hand he struck Paul with. Alan breathed heavily. He was shaking. He looked torn between fear and fury.
“What the hell? You too?” the kid asked. He knelt beside Paul and started to tug at something.
“What happened? What’s going on?” Paul asked. His voice sounded strange to him. Then he realized he had a voice. He had a throat. There was no knife stabbed in his neck. He could talk.
“You were having a nightmare. Seriously, Paul, it was bad enough with that guy last night. Now you too? What’s going on? Is it this place?” Alan struggled with whatever he was pulling on, dropping it with a frustrated grunt. He wiped something from his eye. “You’re all twisted up in your own blankets, you big idiot.”
Paul freed his arms with a little effort and unwrapped himself from the blanket that had cocooned itself around him. Alan remained sitting next to him, waiting, but not trying to help anymore. The kid was fuming.
Paul looked at his hands, almost expecting to see the knife cut. His palms were clean and unmarked by any blade. Paul wracked his mind, searching for the point at which the world had been real, and when it had become the dream. The kid’s black eye and swollen lip, wounds received from the fight against the survivor, gave him all the information he needed.
“I’m sorry, Alan,” he muttered.
The kid stood up. Paul could feel the rage and fear emanating from him. “Do I got to worry about you trying to kill me in your sleep too? What the hell is going on with you two? Is it going to happen to me?”
Paul remained sitting. He wanted the kid to be standing over him, to be larger than him. He hoped it would help him calm down a bit. He shook his head. “No. I just had a regular nightmare.”
Alan shrugged. “So, what, that guy has super nightmares? Nightmare-mares? What’s the difference?”
Paul gingerly touched the tender cheek where Alan had struck him. It felt warm, and he wondered if it was bruised. “Well, for one, you can wake me up, or anyone having a normal nightmare, with a slap to the face. That wouldn’t have done any good last night. That man wasn’t having a nightmare. It’s more like he was reliving something.”
Alan glared at him. Paul could see the confusion on the kid’s face.
“It’s not like a dream. Not for him,” he explained. “The cunning folk and medicine people would tell stories about soldiers who were haunted by the people they killed. They would say the spirits of the dead, or the demons that feed on such sin, could possess the soldiers and make them live through those evil times again and again. Sometimes, the possessed would kill, thinking they were still in those battles, and they would murder anyone around them. They wouldn’t see people. They saw only the phantoms from their past, from the horror they witnessed, or the things they did.”
“You think that man was possessed?”
Paul sighed. He remembered the amber eyes, the black tongue. No. That wasn’t real.
“I don’t think there are spirits that do this. I think some things are just horrible, terrifying, and they can scar the mind. And sometimes, those scars can bleed. The mind just can’t tell the difference between what is real and what was real. I think our sleeping friend woke up last night, in a manner of speaking. He just woke up still fighting the thing that nearly killed him. When you stood there, on the wagon, he didn’t see you. He saw the beast that tried to kill him. And he fought back.”
Alan stood silently mulling over what Paul had told him. For several minutes he didn’t move; he just glared at the wagon. Finally, he extended a hand to Paul to help him up.
“Do you still think we should try to wake him up?” he asked Paul.
He thought about it for only a moment. “I don’t think we can afford not to. I don’t want to go another mile on the road wondering if that man is going to attack us again. I don’t know if waking him up is going to stop that from happening, but I’d feel a little bit better knowing something about this guy.”
Alan nodded his head and went to his bedroll. He picked up his gun belt and buckled it around his waist. When he saw Paul watching him reload the weapon, he said, “I won’t miss again.” There was a determination in his expression, a resolve that underscored the words with a grim assurance that if the man could not be trusted, he would be killed.
Paul didn’t think they would need the gun. But too much had happened, and despite their distance from the valley, there was still a lingering unease in the air.
Paul forced a smile and a nod. He stretched and stifled a yawn. Alan glared at the wagon, eyes narrowed, his face tightened into a scowl. Paul could almost feel the cold fury emanating from his friend. Alan slid his loaded gun into its holster. His hand rested on the handle, frighteningly relaxed.
They needed a moment of calm. Several moments. Finally, he spoke, burying the tension in pretend ease. “Well, he ain’t going anywhere for now. Let’s eat something. I could use some coffee, and a bit of time to shake off that bad dream.”
Alan looked at him and opened his mouth to protest. Paul held up a hand.
“Alan, please,” Paul begged softly. “I need some time before I can deal with him. Just some food and coffee. Maybe a smoke. An hour, at the most. Then, I promise you, we’ll get this matter sorted out.”
The kid took a deep breath. His hand fell away from his gun. He nodded, walked over to the wood pile and tossed a fresh log into the red coals.