Ghosts in the Deadlands

Chapter 13 of The Triple World

“Want a twist in the tale?” Yana asked, staring sideways at Alex.

He looked back blankly.

“I’ve never actually been to the Deadlands.”

“With good reason,” Sasha said, gritting his teeth.

The three of them had been walking for hours already. Yana’s brown, protective cloth was starting to wear thing, having been pulled up over her head a few times too often. It wasn’t offering much protection from the sun. Her ruddy complexion deepened the further north they went. 

“Shouldn’t we have brought Shay, then?” Alex asked, which elicited a snort from Sasha.

“If we come across cannibals, they’ll eat him first,” Yana explained.

“But if we come across cannibals, we won’t have any prote-”

“We’ll give them you, buddy. Don’t worry,” Sasha retorted, shooting him a fake smile.

“Look. I don’t know what I ever did to you…”

“Don’t know much, do you? Fuck all about Skyreen and fuck all about the Surface.”

“Hey.” Alex stopped. “What’s your problem?”

“You are. Your existence is really screwing up my life, right now.”

“Doesn’t look like you had much to screw up.” Alex took a step towards him.

Yana positioned herself between them, pulling her rucksack straps a little too tightly. “Then let’s offload him onto the other Aetherians,” she said, looking pointedly at Sasha, staring so deeply into him that he momentarily forgot his anger.

“Sorry.” He held up his hands in surrender, capitulating to a feeling he knew too well when he looked at Yana.

The sticky, hot-to-the-touch air was tangible with tension as the two men bristled, but nevertheless turned to continue walking.

“That’s it.” Yana spoke as though she was speaking to children. “One foot in front of the other.”

They both glared at her.

Their pace kept their backs slick with sweat as they marched north. Passing scrapyard after scrapyard, scavenger after scavenger, Yana noticed the towers of trash getting taller and thicker. They were about to leave the middle Surface. As the walked, they solicited unwanted stared from scavengers. Yana recognised a few of them from the markets. One in particular. A girl called Skandi. Her thread-bare green cloth flailed as she waved.

“Hey,” Skandi called out, jogging over.

“Oh hey.” Yana tried to sound nonchalant. 

“You hardly ever come this far north. You can’t just pick a new patch when yours is wearing thin.”

“I’m not here to encroach on your trash territory, Skandi.”

Somewhat placated, but not entirely, the other scavenger shot back, “Good. keep it that way.” She turned on her heel, heading back to her cart full.

“She seems friendly,” Alex observed.

“Yeah well, most resources are fought over. Even garbage.”

“Well, she certainly seems…” Alex trailed off, his gave held hostage by something to his left. He came to an abrupt halt.

“What now, princess?” Sasha growled.

“What is that?”

Yana and Sasha followed his eye line, landing on a figure in the near distance. It had no clothing, nothing to cover it from the taunting sun. It had been striped of everything - anything that would have been considered a resource. It was just an outline now. So much easier to refer to as an ‘it’.

Sasha answered, matter-of-fact - quiet. “That’s a husk.”

“What happened to him?”

Yana flinched when Alex gave the body a gendered identity.

“New Eden strings up thieves. He probably got caught stealing water,” Yana murmured.

“New Eden? Is the… the guy in charge down here?”

Sasha laughed, but it sounded more like a bark.

“Kind of.” Yana was gentler. “There are only two real organisations that have any power here. Organisations like New Eden that produce and sell resources, like food and water, and the Temple of the Tarot.”

“Resources and religion,” Sasha echoed. “The only two entities with any sort of clout.”

“The only real law is that you can’t steal from either order: religion or resources. You can steal from anyone else. Just not them. You’ll end up like that, over there.” Yana pointed in the general direction of the husk, but couldn’t bring herself to look at it again. It’s parched-ground skin was far enough away to try and forget. She’d had a close shave with New Eden herself, over a few meagre beans, no less. But still, she wasn’t about to re-live the memory all over again.

“What did they do to him?” Alex persisted.

“Striped him, tied him to a post and waited for the sun to do its thing.” Sasha quickened his pace, understanding Yana’s discomfort. He put a hand on her shoulder.

Alex looked at the ground, finally silenced.

“That’s it. One foot in front of the other.” Sasha smirked, earning himself a nudge in the ribs.

Before long, the scrapyards ended. The sun was tired from battering them with all its strength and had started to retreat behind the distant mountains. Long swathes of ruddy, barren land stretched out in front of them, as though the surface was flexing its muscles, showing them exactly what it was and what it could do. The land glowed like it was on fire. Even without the sun to illuminate all of the nooks and crannies in the landscape, the Deadlands was a beacon unto itself. It seemed to undulate - mirage-ing and merging with the horizon line.

“Who are they?” Alex asked, squinting through the dusky gloom.

“Ancestors! Would you stop with-” Sasha froze before finishing his thought. His hand immediately flew from his side, searching for Yana’s, finding it, clutching it.

“What?”

“Shut up,” Yana hissed. “Deadland stalkers.”

“You mean cannibals?” Alex’s voice rose to a hoarse whisper.

They were all rooted to the spot - the most convincing trees the Deadlands had sprouted in centuries.

Figures up ahead of them wove in and out of a marching line, like insubordinate soldiers. They didn’t appear to be paying any attention whatsoever to Yana, Sasha and Alex. But as all Earthbound were so keenly aware, events could always take a turn. Always.

The figures looked like giant black beetles against the flaming, flaring backdrop of the Deadlands. They skittered and scattered like flies, buzzing around a corpse. But they weren’t running at them. They weren’t releasing their war-cry into the air. They weren’t doing anything.

“They don’t seem hungry,” Sasha breathed, eyes trained on the insanely normal-looking people slowly inching closer over the dead soil.

“They can’t be cannibals,” Alex said, a little too loudly. He hushed himself, then added, bemused, “They’re not…”

“Currently munching on a human femur?” Yana offered.

“Well, yeah.”

“And we’re not currently eating pumpkin sticks,” Sasha sneered.

They started walking again. Tentatively at first, then gaining confidence, taking more purposeful strides. 

They eventually crossed paths. 

Against her better judgement, Yana looked up, and accidentally straight into the eyes of a Deadland stalker. For a moment, she forgot to breathe. He almost seemed to smile at her, a deep, pink scar stretching over his mouth, from his upper lip down to his chin. His black, protective cloth looked so much like Fin’s that she shuddered under his gaze before turn her eyes back to the empty world in before her.

“Shouldn’t be too far, now,” she whispered to Alex.

He nodded.

There was a small stream of smoke trickling up into the sky, in front of one of the red, raw mountains.

“We’ll keep clear of the camps,” Sasha stated. “Aetherians don’t really build camps; they just kind of lie down and die. Camps mean cannibals, and they might not be so passive if we wander into their dwellings.”

Alex frowned, but kept quiet.

“You’re not going to like what you find,” Yana said, quietly. “You know that, right?”

He didn’t answer. Just ran hid hands through his not-so-slick hair.

“We’re just going to have to wander until we find them,” Sasha sighed. “That’s how they find each other, after all. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

Taking further steps across the scorched soil felt almost sinful. But they trudged on. Dusk seemed to mean something different in the Deadlands: the ground continued to glow a fierce umber that looked as though it was threatening to bite their feet with every stride. The land appeared to be its own light.

After a while, Yana turned to Alex. “Where would you go, if we weren’t here? If you were alone.”

“Ances- I don’t know!”

“Well think. Close your eyes and think. The stalkers weren’t hungry just then, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be soon. Or even now. And we can’t just keep going straight. We’ll get lost.”

Alex let out an exasperated huff. But still, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “If I was alone, I’d want to keep to the side, or the foot of one of the mountains. I don’t know why.”

“Sure, ok. We’ll start there.”

They headed left, towards one of the friendlier looking mountains, following Alex’s lead. Their footsteps dragged as fatigue settled in. Only adrenaline kept them going - the odd high-pitched yelp or wail coming from the smoking campfires keeping them alert, awake. Excessively awake. It wasn’t as if they would stand a chance against a group of stalkers anyway.

They heard voices. Sad, tired voices.

“Think we’ve found them,” said Sasha.

Yana hung back to walk abreast to him, letting Alex take the lead. He marched forwards with purpose. Getting closer and closer, bigger and bigger, was a small group of people: men and woman, young and old, healthy and sickly. They had vastly different features. Yana had half-expected them all to look somewhat like Alex, but the only thing they had in common was the look in their eyes; they were dead, empty, ghosted eyes that lacked lustre. Lacked life. Not like Alex, at all. But they probably hadn’t been lucky enough to have acquired a guide upon their landing down here.

Alex seemed lost for words. He simply stared at them, just as they stared at him.

But one of them stepped forward. A man of a similar age to Alex. His haggard face was burnt raw by the sun, blistered across the jagged edges of his protruding cheekbones and jawline. “I offer myself.” His voice was as hollow as his eyes.

“What?”

“You’re not here to take one of us?”

“Well, um, no. But why are you here?”

“We have nowhere to go.” The man looked confused. “If you are going to take one of us, I volunteer to go with you.”

Alex trembled slightly. “I’m from Skyreen, like you.”

“What?” The man craned his neck towards Alex.

“I’m one of you. I’m an Aetherian.”

“Come to join the wait, then?”

“The wait for what?”

“We’re waiting for the Earthbound. It’s my turn. I’ve been here longer than anyone else here.”

“Just waiting for them? To do what?”

“They eat us. This is a normal thing.” The man nodded, as though reassuring himself. “We find the earthbound to be quite merciful. They always ask if anyone is willing. And many of us are. So many, in fact, that we have formed a queue.”

“Why would you do that?” Alex became incensed. “You’ve just given up?”

The man shrugged.

“You’ve been exiled from Skyreen, so you’re just giving up?” he seethed.

“I don’t know who I am. If I had a family, I have forgotten them. If I had a good life, I don’t remember it. My everything has been taken from me. I have nothing. What is there to fight for?”

Alex was aghast. His mouth opened and closed, flickering with silent words like a flame. He turned back to look at Yana and Sasha, ashen. Even Sasha felt remorse for him.

Yana took a tentative step forward. “Do, um, do you want to see a tarot reader? They may be able to help you learn more about who you are.”

The ghost of a man growled out a barking, heaving sort of chuckle that turned into a hacking cough.

“I don’t know who I am,” he repeated. “I am just waiting.”

Alex wiped a hand over his forehead in frustration.

“Do you know what an Oracle is?”

“An Oracle?” the ghost closed his eyes. “Look,” he said sharply upon opening them, “are you going to take me or not? I’m quite literally waiting to die; you’re hungry, eh? Come on, then.” His angry words were meant to goad, but a silent emptiness replaced his voice as soon as it died away in his throat.

“Let’s go.” Alex stormed past Yana and Sasha.

“Wait. You don’t want to stay with them?” Sasha asked.

Yana and Alex turned round to look at him as though he had just surfaced from the Murk.

“What?” he said defensively. “You were very passionate about coming here to find them, and now you’re just going to leave them to it? To die?”

“It seems to be all they want to do,” Yana said quietly. “Let’s go home.” She held her hand out, grabbing onto Sasha and pulling him towards her.