Ghostwalkers (23 page)

Grey, feeling a bit like Noah leading the animals to the Ark, guided the mixed herd back to town.

It was the only pleasant moment of that night. Grimmer work lay ahead.

Those with the strongest stomachs helped gather up the ruined bodies of the attackers, and they were taken by wagon out past the edge of town to where a small cemetery lay withering. Water-parched trees leaned dolefully over cheap markers and handmade crosses. Only the older graves had proper headstones, and they seemed to mock the current poverty of the town.

Four strong men took turns digging a pit, and then the dead were laid in it, stacked like cordwood. No one threw roses. No one sang hymns. Those would be saved for the burials of three people the dead had murdered.

The burial was not without ceremony, though.

As the sun curled red fingers over the serrated teeth of the broken mountains to the east, Brother Joe came and read a prayer for the bodies of the dead monsters. It was a strange ceremony. Everyone came to it, but except for the gravediggers the townsfolk stayed outside of the low slatted rail fence that bordered the graves. The men took their hats off. The women wept. It was nearly impossible to identify any of the dead except by their clothes, but some of the families laid claim to a few of them. One mother collapsed down into a sobbing pile as the dirt was shoveled into the pit.

Grey stood with Jenny and Looks Away. They were filthy and exhausted and sick at heart. The Sioux's posture was unnaturally still because of the burns on his back, although Brother Joe had smeared a noxious mixture of chicken fat and herbs on it. He said it helped with the pain, but the rigid lines around his mouth told a different story.

Brother Joe read the burial prayer for the dead. “I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”

Normally Grey was indifferent to the words, his own tethers to religion having worn thin after all he'd been through, but today those words hit him hard. They chilled him. Jenny Pearl took his hand and squeezed it hard enough to make his fingers hurt. On the other side of him Looks Away's face had turned to wood.

Yeah
, Grey thought,
maybe that wasn't the right choice of prayer. Not after last night.

The monk droned on, apparently oblivious to the possible interpretations of his words. Typical of a lot of preachers, mused Grey. They say the words, but he was pretty sure a lot of them didn't study on them in the way they were supposed to.

“I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger. For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For if we live, we live unto the Lord; and if we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.”

Having stalled on the first part, Grey's mind became numb to the rest of it. Brother Joe's words seemed to flow past him. He glanced around and saw a variety of expressions on the faces of the crowd. Some of them held bitter resentment in the hard lines around their mouths, though whether it was directed at the monk, at the undead, or at God Himself, Grey couldn't tell. Others wore the blank masks of shock. A few looked impatient, clearly wanting to get back to the tasks of the day, even if those tasks involved burying the dead and repairing damage done by monsters. And a handful murmured the prayers, word for word, with Brother Joe.

“The Lord be with you,” intoned Brother Joe. “O God, whose mercies cannot be numbered: Accept our prayers on behalf of thy servant, and grant him an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of thy saints; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, O God, now and forever. Amen.”

Grey mouthed the word and it tasted like ashes on his tongue.

The funeral gathering broke apart. Most of the people drifted listlessly back to town; a few lingered to watch the rest of the dirt being shoveled into the pit. Grey saw Mrs. O'Malley standing with Felicity, the little red-haired girl. The teacher's eyes were hard as bullets; the girl's eyes were empty.

“She'll be okay,” said Jenny, who had followed his gaze.

“Will she?” asked Grey.

Jenny, clearly unwilling to pursue the lie, squeezed his hand and led him away.

But Grey paused as they passed Brother Joe. He gestured for the monk to join them, and they all stepped aside under the shade of a juniper tree.

“Nice service,” lied Grey. “I'm sure the families were comforted.”

The monk wasn't fooled. “There's nothing I can say that can comfort these people.”

He leaned on the word “I,” taking the whole measure of blame and adding it to his stock of personal and spiritual favor. Grey would have liked to take the man off the hook, but he was too tired and this wasn't the time. Instead he nodded toward the mass grave.

“Tell me about the ‘Harrowed,'” he asked, thinking of Lucky Bob. “I've heard of that, but I don't know much. I don't know enough. Tell me what you know about these Harrowed. What are they?”

“Brother Looks Away might disagree,” began the monk, “since he tends to see everything in terms of science and what can be measured or labeled.”

Looks Away shrugged. “After last night, dear chap, consider me open to alternative suggestions. Besides, I have some experience with the phenomenon. So, please, share what you know and I'll contribute if I can.”

The monk looked around to make sure their conversation was not being overheard. “Some of this is what I have heard from others in my order. Some is from what I have learned from travelers. Do you know the word ‘manitou'?”

“Sure,” said Grey. “It's the Algonquin word for spirit. Like Gitchee Manitou, the great spirit. Kind of their take on God, as I understand it.”

“To some, yes,” said Brother Joe. “The word—or variations of it—are present in many pagan beliefs.”

“Pagan? Careful where you tread, old son,” warned Sioux.

“Forgive me, brother,” said the monk, placing a hand over his heart. “I meant no offense. I know that among your people, the Lakota Sioux, they call the Great Spirit
nagi tanka
. I respect that, but the manitou of which I speak are not that. They are not of God. Not of anyone's version of God. They are more like demons.”

“Demons?” echoed Grey.

“Yes. Devils of the Pit. More like the
kagi
of your faith, Brother Looks Away,” said Brother Joe, and the Sioux gave him a guarded nod. “The monks of my order believe that the manitou are the irredeemable souls of sinners who were cast into Hell. These tormented souls are always searching for a way to escape their punishment and return to the land of the living.”

“My father was not a sinner,” hissed Jenny, and Grey had to step between her and the monk to prevent violence.

“No, no, let me finish,” said Brother Joe. “I need to tell you some things in order to talk about what happened last night.”

Jenny wore a hostile scowl, but she nodded.

“Manitou are always trying to enter our world. Before the Great Quake it was much more difficult, but they have managed it. The Bible speaks of possession, and that is one way. It is very difficult, of course, for a manitou to enter a living body and conquer its rightful host. Exorcists of the church have fought against this for many centuries, and in some of these struggles the manitou were cast back down into the Pit.”

The others said nothing.

“There are rumors—horrible rumors—that some sorcerers and devil worshippers over the years have performed rituals to invite a manitou into their body. This is done in the crazed belief that the demon will grant powers and share ownership of the flesh. But … manitou do not like to share.”

“Egad,” said Looks Away tartly. “Like a party guest who will not leave.”

“Far worse than that,” said Brother Joe. “In such cases the human is driven mad and frequently commits terrible acts of violence and cruelty. There is a story from Europe about a prince, Vlad of Wallachia, who performed such a ritual and the list of his crimes is legendary. Perhaps other great mass murderers and conquerors have been similarly overcome. Maybe even the Caesars of Rome and—.”

“But you digress,” said Looks Away quietly.

“Sorry, sorry…” The monk looked momentarily flustered, then he found the thread of his tale. “The second way in which the manitou try and enter our world is by invading and reviving the bodies of the dead.”

Grey exchanged a quick, covert glance with Looks Away. Visions of the dead posse seemed to loom above them.

“What happens to these spirits when the body is destroyed?” asked Jenny. “Are the manitou killed, too?”

“I don't think so. The abbot of my order believes they are released back into the spirit world. Into what many call the Happy Hunting Grounds.”

“‘Happy' is a relative term,” mused Looks Away sourly.

“There is another way in which a spirit can walk in our Earth as a person,” continued the monk. “If a demon of sufficient power enters a body soon after death—and the soul inside has a strong will or something else the demon thinks makes the reward worth the risk—it can attach itself to the corpse permanently. This is what we call the ‘Harrowed,' and they are far more powerful than ordinary undead. For the undead the possession, as dreadful as it must be, is fleeting. However with the Harrowed, the demon actually feeds off the holy light of the host's soul. And in exchange it exists in a parody of actual life, even to the point of healing the stolen flesh when wounded. If it was not so dreadful a thing we would praise it as miraculous.”

“It sounds quite horrible,” said Looks Away quietly.

“It is,” said the monk, “for the soul and the invading spirit wrestle for constant control.”

“Wrestle is a funny word,” observed Grey. “Is there a chance the human soul can win?”

“Perhaps,” said the monk. “I've heard it said that a strong-willed individual might win back control of the flesh. Some say that there have been times when the human soul achieves this but then uses some of the demon's supernatural abilities. Most often, though, it is the demon that is strongest and it takes dominion, suppressing the host and using the stolen flesh to cause as much strife and mischief as it can, delighting in the pain and suffering it inflicts.”

“Couldn't we just put a bullet in them and end it there?” asked Grey. “Wouldn't that end the—what's the word?—
occupation
?”

“
Possession
,” supplied the monk. “And it's not as simple as that.”

Grey sighed. “Of course it's not.”

“You see, my friends, if the host is destroyed—say by a shot to the brain or burned to ashes—the demon is slain as well. Therefore it will do absolutely anything to prevent that from happening, and you cannot even imagine the lengths to which a Harrowed will go. It would burn down Heaven if it could. My abbot was uncertain as to whether this would release the soul of the possessed or cast it into greater spiritual torment. It is because of this that the Harrowed are perhaps the greatest example of the struggle we all have with sin and temptation and—.”

“Drifting, drifting…,” murmured Looks Away.

“No,” said Brother Joe, “I am not. Tell me, gentlemen, do you know why the War Between the States ended?”

“Ceasefire,” said Grey. “Everyone knows that.”

Brother Joe shook his head. “No, that is the lie that everyone believes. It's what we have all been told. But the truth is that this world—our world—has been changed somehow. It has become an abode of evil.”

“Oh come on now,” began Looks Away, but Grey gestured for him to be quiet.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“It began at the Battle of Gettysburg,” said Brother Joe. “In that terrible, terrible place where so many died. But, God save us all, the dead did not stay dead. They rose.”

Those words hung there and no one dared speak. After what he and Looks Away had seen, Grey could not call this man a liar.

“It was a slaughter,” said Brother Joe, “with the dead killing the living and thereby swelling their own ranks. It forced the generals on both sides to withdraw. It happened again when the Union's Potomac Army and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia clashed. Red slaughter and the dead walking abroad in defiance of the natural order of things. The war ground on for years, but the horrible truth of the living dead, my friends, is what eventually brought on the ceasefire.”

“Those were manitou?” asked Jenny, her eyes huge.

“Yes, and with the risk that every battle would further empty the halls of Hell itself, the generals and politicians quietly ended hostilities. It was not a move toward peace and sanity but a desperate act to prevent the wholesale slaughter of everyone in North America.”

“By the Queen's silken garters,” breathed Looks Away.

“But a lot of people have died since then,” protested Grey. “Why aren't we ass-deep in walking corpses?”

Brother Joe shook his head. “There are so many mysteries. Some believe that only those who die by violence are at risk of being resurrected in this fashion. My abbot believes that it is only those who die in war. They could both be wrong, and for my part … I do not know.

Grey grunted. “You know, I did hear some rumors like that. But it was from men who were being treated for war stress. In army hospitals and such.”

“Or,” mused Looks Away, “is that where they put the witnesses to discredit them?”

It was an ugly question.