The Forest of Hands and Teeth (34 page)

He steps back, his shoulders slumping a bit. He looks off into the Forest and for a moment we listen to the rain crash down around us. “Because you are all I have left of family,” he says.

“M
ary, we can still go back,” Jed says, rain flying from his fingers as he waves his hands. “We can let the rain douse the fire. Backtrack, take another path. The fire would have killed most of the Unconsecrated. We have a few weapons, we could get through it.”

I can see how his eyes shine with the possibility.

“We might find another village, a healthy one. We could have a life….” He lets his voice trail off. “It's what I have wanted.” He speaks so softly I almost miss his words as they slip under the thunder. “Mary, why chase old dreams? What can the ocean give you that we cannot?”

I wonder if he's right. If my dreams of the ocean are only that: childhood dreams. Fancies. I wonder how I could have ever believed there was a place untouched by the Return. A world alive outside the Forest.

I think about turning back, of sliding back down the path and following its twists and turns, never knowing if we are going in the right direction.

“At least wait until morning before making a decision,” Jed says, his voice gentle, sensing my hesitation. I can feel his hands around my wrist, tugging me back down the path. And a part of me wants to give in.

I hear a moan; I hear the familiar sound of bones breaking as Unconsecrated force their fingers and hands through the fence links.

“But tomorrow will be too late,” I tell Jed, jerking my wrist free. “The Unconsecrated will surround us tomorrow. Will surround the gate.”

Jed sweeps a hand at the fence, water flinging from his fingers. “They surround us now and you want to go out there?”

“But it's raining now, Jed. It will throw off my scent. This is the only time I can go.”

I can already feel my limbs begin to shake in terror and so I place one fist on my hip, hoping he won't notice how the ax trembles in my free hand. I wonder if he thinks I don't have the courage to follow through. If I will go to the gate and hesitate. Lose my nerve, turn back.

“Mary, it won't work. I tried that with Beth in the rain but she was still attacked.”

“She was attacked by Gabrielle,” I counter. “And Gabrielle is gone.” I think of her desiccated body the last time I saw her. I wonder if she has finally found peace or if she lives on, unable to move, staring into the sky.

Jed still shakes his head no but I stand straight, throw back my shoulders. I resist the urge to close my eyes as I place my hand on the latch holding the gate locked.

“I promised Travis that I wouldn't give up hope,” I tell him. “I promised him that I wouldn't accept safe and calm. Not at the expense of my dreams.”

“What are your dreams worth if you're dead?” he asks, his voice soft.

In response I turn the latch and slip through the opening. I'm already a few paces away when I hear Jed call out to me but I don't stop.

I am in the Forest of Hands and Teeth now. No longer protected by fences. There are no Unconsecrated by the gate and none that I can see or hear anywhere in the immediate darkness.

For the first time in my life I am the one on the other side of the fence.

I'm running, my arms pumping, gripping the ax tightly. The storm rages around me and I can hear the crash of trees, the sound of branches being tossed in the wind. I can't tell if the noises surrounding me belong to Unconsecrated. I keep my eyes glued on the ground in front of me, trying to look through the shiny darkness for anything that will cause me to fall. That will make me weak. Or a target.

I've gone fifty paces before I allow myself to breathe, to allow hope to squeeze fear out of my heart. I realize I'm actually going to make it. Then the crashes around me grow more intense and I realize that even though I'm covered in muck and mud the Unconsecrated still scent me. And then I remember my knee. Remember falling, the sharp pain, the blood.

They track me now, the tang of blood oozing through the rain-soaked night. I can hear their moans. Hear their echoes. My mind begins to scream at me to turn back while there is still time. To race back to the gate. To choose a life with Harry and return to our village.

But instead I push on. The moist air sears my throat and my lungs scream. The muscles in my legs burn and already I feel myself grow weak. The lack of food and racing from the fire over the last few days taking over.

I grow careless, my arms flailing around me, the ax handle slick in my hand. I feel broken fingers wrap around my wrist and I pull back and shriek. Everywhere I look now I see them coming out of the darkness.

I am surrounded by Unconsecrated.

I have to force myself not to panic. Instead, I grasp the ax with both hands and begin to swing, running through the clearing that my weapon creates. Flesh falls around me, the squelch of steel meeting putrefaction mixing with the sound of the rain beating the ground, of my feet slipping in the mud.

But it's not enough.

I stumble. Hands grasp at my feet. I roll onto my back. I swing. My arm muscles scream at the effort. I dig my feet in, trying to push myself back along the sodden ground. Everywhere, they are everywhere.

I am stuck in the mulch of leaves and limbs and sodden earth, my body pulled down by suction. I cannot escape. I am lost. Finally, the Forest, the inevitability of it all, has won.

And then I can hear the screams. Not of terror but of rage. I hear the voice telling me to run and suddenly the Unconsecrated are gone. A hand reaches down, drags me to my feet. Presses me onward.

It's Jed and he swings his blade alongside me.

A new sound emerges through the Forest: the sound of racing water.

“This way,” I tug at Jed, pulling him toward me as we run in the direction of the sound. And suddenly, the ground slopes sharply away beneath us and we cling to each other as we tumble down a steep incline. I drop my ax and use both hands to halt my fall, scrabbling at the muddled earth. I dig my toes and elbows and knees into the ground, branches digging into the soft skin of the underside of my arms, pebbles scraping the flesh from my legs and a bramble pulling at my cheek. Finally, I come to a stop.

I take a deep breath, almost choking on the rain. My body throbs in too many places to count.

All I want to do is rest here, determine how badly I've been injured by the fall. But then I hear the moans and the water raging even nearer and I push myself to my knees.

I look up and see the horde of Unconsecrated at the top of the hill, watch as they tumble down after us. They slide around me, their arms out and mouths open.

With so many bodies it's impossible to find Jed. I begin to scream his name, terrified.

Finally, I see him. He's looking at me, standing where he slid to a stop. Just at that moment a large Unconsecrated man careens down the slick hill, colliding full-force with him.

I see Jed flip through the air and land on his back with a thud. I begin to sprint. The Unconsecrated man recovers his balance as my feet slip, getting stuck in the muck. I can't find my ax so I grab a branch to fend off the Unconsecrated that crawl around me.

“Jed!” I shout, “I'm coming, Jed, hold on!”

My eyes fill with useless tears, blinding me. I swipe at them with my arm but that only makes the problem worse as mud coats my eyelashes.

Jed isn't moving. The Unconsecrated man crawls closer. He's leaning over Jed as I approach. I'm screaming now, hoping to distract the Unconsecrated, hoping to keep him from biting my brother.

He bends his head down and I throw the heavy branch I'm holding at him. It careens off his head and he glances at me. For a moment I think I've won. I think that I've enticed him enough.

But then, with the ferocity of a feral animal, he hunches over Jed and lowers his head.

I trip then and fall to one knee, the knee I had hit earlier. Pain explodes behind my eyes.

I feel a hand scrabble at my back and I turn and punch a female Unconsecrated with all my might. She staggers back. Long enough for me to realize that I tripped over Jed's scythe.

I wrap my fingers around its smooth wooden handle, remembering the heft of it from when I used it to kill Travis, and swing. I take out the Unconsecrated woman and then I stumble toward Jed and swing at the Unconsecrated man.

It is a messy death and I have no idea if he's bitten Jed. Blood is everywhere, cuts on our arms, faces and legs from our fall down the hill. He is still not conscious but his chest rises and falls.

I tug at him, shake his shoulder. But a pair of Unconsecrated children advance on us. I leave Jed and approach them, my fingers loose around the hilt of the scythe. The Unconsecrated have no avarice, no skill in the hunt. Their only strength is numbers, wearing down the living. And so the two children shamble toward me and it is easy to swipe the blade at them. To watch as it cleaves through the skulls and they each drop, a pile of clothes surrounding desiccated flesh.

“Come on, Jed,” I say. I get back to his side and begin to tug at his arms. “We have to move!”

He opens his eyes again but can't get his legs under his body. His movements are slow, uncoordinated. I keep pulling at his arms, bracing myself in the mud, slipping too much to get us anywhere.

More Unconsecrated advance on us and I leave him to keep fighting. It's a never-ending stream of them. I look up to the top of the hill to see even more sliding down.

And I am certain that this is how I will die. That I have chosen wrong. That this was not the path I was supposed to take. The gate was nothing more than a gate. It was not an answer.

There are too many Unconsecrated bearing down on us. Too many for me to defend against.

A
hand grasps at my waist and I'm about to swing when I realize that it's Jed. The blade barely stops before it would have split his throat. He is hunched over, his face pinched with pain.

“This way,” he says. I look back over my shoulder, see the horde bearing down on us. It's too dark to see how many but I know it's enough to overwhelm us. “There's a river nearby,” he says. “We'll be safer there.”

I nod and he leads the way, limping. I try to hold him up, to help him, but my own feet lose purchase and I constantly slip.

The roar of the water pounds in my ears and eventually Jed slows, sliding his feet out as if he's probing for something.

“We have to move faster,” I tell him. “They're getting too close again.”

He holds a hand up and I am quiet.

“Here,” he says, and I'm about to walk past him to see what he's pointing out and he pulls me back at the last moment, just as I feel my right foot slipping into nothingness.

He kneels and I follow suit. Both of us scoot forward and then I feel the emptiness with my own hands. There's a canyon, cut by the river. Just up the river I can see a massive waterfall, churning and throwing debris into the darkness. The roar of the water is deafening now, fed by the storm. Waves glint below, the river frothy, foamy, hungry.

I'm terrified looking down on it, my fingers digging into the mud. Jed swings one foot over the edge of the cliff near the falls.

I grab his hand. “What are you doing?” I ask. My voice cracks from the strain.

“It's too high to jump,” he tells me. “There might be rocks we can't see. We have to climb down.”

I'm already shaking my head. “The ground is too soft, we'll never make it.”

He grabs my hand, pulls me over the side and wraps my fingers around something firm and slick with rain. “Roots,” he tells me. “We can use them like rope. Be careful of the rocks,” he adds, “the rain may have loosened them.”

I'm still unsure. I can't climb with the scythe and I'm unwilling to let it go. But then the Unconsecrated horde descends on us and Jed pulls me over the edge before the first one can get me and I drop the weapon into the darkness below as I clamber for purchase in the soft earth.

They begin to fall around us, bumping us, grabbing at us as they tumble down the side of the cliff.

“Hold on!” Jed yells. The stream of Unconsecrated bodies does not stop, their arms reaching for us as they slip past, forcing us to climb lower. We shuffle down until I find a little overhang that protects me from the falling bodies.