smart. I used the help of magic to weaken the bond between me and my past, and now, like a net, the magic holds back all the memories that destroyed me for so long. Years before, I offered to help Hunter do the same, but he seemed to think he deserved this torture. That he deserved the pain.
An unexpected thought awakened inside of me. If Mae should die… If Mae should be lost to us forever, I’d find someone who could weave the same spell for Hunter, whether he wanted it or not. The four of us could battle the evil the Horseman would unleash, but not if Hunter was battling his inner demons.
I stepped away from his room feeling strange. Forgetting Mae was the best thing for all of us. We could focus on stopping the apocalypse. We could focus on saving all the people who needed us. So why did just the thought of losing her smile make my gut churn?
5
Grim
The deadside was never what I expected. Sometimes, it was rough and jagged rocks that covered the ground as I slogged my way over a terrain that reminded me of images I’d seen of Mars. Other times, it was a wet, hot jungle. But this time? It was a deep, dark forest that was as cold as ice.
There was nothing comfortable about being deadside. It was a last resort, a do-or-die, last gasp effort to find something that would help us. I knew the darkness had Mae, I’d seen that when we first got back to the house. What I didn’t know was where, or what its plan was for her.
Hunter had disappeared without telling any of us where he was going, so we all knew it was one of his cowboy missions where he could yell “yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker” and go down in flames trying to get what he wanted. It was kind of his thing. We all knew it, and when he deigned to tell us of his plans, we’d try and talk him out of it. Not that it ever really worked.
My plans were different. Yes, I was violent when I needed to be and I loved my sword an unhealthy amount, but at least I told the others what the hell I was doing. They knew I was going to go deadside to try and find any information that I could. They knew I couldn’t track time or distance when I was over here, but that I’d be back as soon as I could. Being on this side of the mortal coil felt like being tarred and feathered, but the longer I stayed, the more the tar burned. At that moment, my skin felt like it was on fire, but I wasn’t about to turn around, not when I knew I was getting close to something.
“What are you doing here, meatbag?” a voice whispered in my ear.
“I think the fleshsuit wants to party,” another voice said, but this was a few feet away.
“Maybe he likes spirit pussy?” the first voice asked again.
“Maybe he is a pussy. Can’t even handle talking to a ghost.”
I tried my best to ignore them. Spirits always wanted attention. The fact that these two were palling around together could only mean that they’d both decided not to move on to whatever it was that lay ahead of them in their journey. I understood the inclination, death was scary enough in and of itself, but moving on from what you thought was the afterlife? That wasn’t even something we considered for the most part as humans, unless they believed in reincarnation.
Even I had no idea what lay beyond the deadside, but I had to imagine it was better than this place. The deadside had many environments, many spirits that wandered its wastelands, but it always felt as though it was trying to eat away at my soul. As though the place itself could consume the living if they were as stupid as I was and voluntarily came over.
When I still hadn’t responded or even looked at them, they gave up and moved away. I let out a silent sigh of relief. Whenever I spent any amount of time in deadside—which I tried to avoid doing—I always felt on edge, and spirits harassing me just pushed me closer to my tipping point.
The world around me was getting ever colder as I progressed, which was what I expected. After all, I’d found this path because of the freezing cold wind that had blown in