Hello again, Dear Reader. Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the internet once again. Tonight, I’m sharing with you a short science fiction tale with a smattering of horror– A romp through the claustrophobic streets of a post-apocalyptic city with a murderer on the loose. Based off an episode of my podcast The Lost Signal, Sick Brain is one of my favorite stories that I’ve written to date. I hope you like it, too.
If you’d like to listen to the podcast episode, you can find it here:
Otherwise, happy reading! And please, leave your thoughts in the comments below.
SickBrain, By Tilsen Mulalley. 8072 Words.
I.
Scrap-iron walls rose high above the wasted earth. Tac-welded battlements gleamed in the unmerciful furnace of a dirty orange sun. The sickly-looking star fell slowly from the sky, a sinking ship on a hazy sea of horizon. As it fell, the wall’s shadow spread like an oil stain over the emaciated badlands. The burned, rawboned young man found no relief in their shade. He was long past that. His blistered feet moved him forward of their own desperate volition. He stumbled blindly, numbly toward the great gate which split the wall in two.
The boy’s arms hung limply at his sides. Cuts and sores crisscrossed his entire body. Each step relied on the momentum generated by the last. It was a miracle he did not fall; if he did, he would most certainly not rise again. The heat of the wasteland radiated from him. He was on fire. The flames were under his skin, taking root in mind and bone; he was boiling alive in his own juices. Yet still, his feet carried him onward, not stopping until he’d collided with the great iron gate of Big City. He stumbled backwards, barely remaining upright. His cloudy brown eyes refocused as though he were waking from a dream. The boy’s legs buckled. He fell to his knees in front of the gate and traced it upwards with his gaze. Thick bars of black metal, forged by a skilled hand. At the bottom, the bars were sharpened so that they dug into the dry earth. It was crowned by a parapet of lashed wood and scrap. Several faces loomed down over the railing.
“Halt!” A booming voice echoed down, “What’s your business in Big City?”
The young man worked his sandpaper throat.“Please,” he rasped, “please, water.” The words were dust on his lips. They were caught by the wind and blown away, unheard.
“Those with no business are not welcome!” The voice above cried, “We can have no freeloaders in the Big City!”
The young man summoned the last of the strength hiding amongst his muscles. He stood, taking an unstable step forward toward the gate. A spear cut the air with a whistle. It pierced the ground just to the boy’s left. Its wooden shaft vibrated with leftover momentum.
“Turn around,” the voice called down authoratatively.
“I bet he’s a SickBrain,” said another.
The young man’s legs buckled, and he slid to his knees once again. On instinct, he grabbed the shaft of the spear. His dried hands slid down the rough wood, tearing open his palms and slicking them with hot, red blood.
“Please, I can work,” he tried to call. The words were a mere whisper, hardly audible even to him. His vision began to fill with spots of black ink.
“I can work for wa—“
The sentence caught in his windpipe like a rogue fishbone. It choked him as he collapsed forward into the dead soil.
II.
The boy dreamt of green, serpentine eyes and things that moved quickly in the dark. He escaped them, and then he did not dream at all. His mind floated in a formless black ocean. It was more water than he’d ever known in his wasted world. Waves caressed him gently, and the idea of drowning vaguely occurred to him. It was not an unpleasant thought. Then red exploded across the young man’s dark ocean, vaporizing him from the void.
He came to with a sharp inhale of breath. His body rocked gently, head lolling on his neck to the rhythmic clip-clopping of a horse. He was sandwiched between crates. His head had glanced off the corner of one, waking him. A wagon; he was lying in the back of a supply wagon. The musk of soil hung in the air, rich and damp. He could smell the sweetness of ripening fruit. Above him, there were holes in the wagon’s bonnet. Stars sparked within, as though they’d burned the holes themselves.
The young man tried to sit up, but his body remembered the torture it had suffered walking the badlands. His raw palms screamed from beneath their bandages. The world began to pinwheel, and his stomach tried to do the same. He collapsed back on the pillow. A miserable sound somewhere between a gurgle and a moan escaped his lips. His mind frantically begged his ever-rising stomach to hold on. He tried to flop his left arm over his eyes, but something tugged painfully at the inside of his elbow. Touching at the spot, he found that someone had put an IV needle in his arm.
“Don’t move too much,” a voice called from somewhere.
“Who’s there?” the young man replied weakly. His voice was a ragged and dry whisper. The other voice did not speak again.
His vision had begun to slow its spinning. With great effort, the young man craned his neck back as far as he could without taking it off the pillow. He spied the grated slot above his head. It sat below the driver’s seat of the wagon. The back of the driver’s legs were on the other side.
“We’re nearing the gates of the city,” the voice said from this window, “For your own sake, please keep quiet.”
The young man had no time to question this direction. A gruff voice was shouting at the wagon from somewhere high.
“Halt!”
The horse’s hooves came to a hesitant stop. The young man stopped rocking. There was a silence. A door creaked open and clanged shut. Approaching footsteps ceased just outside the wagon. The young man held his breath and threw the blanket covering his legs over his head. He waited for the guards to open the wagon’s canvas flaps and see him cowering.
“Ah, Morden,” the gruff voice said in a more pleasant tone, “back to trade more from the Green Acres, yeah?”
Morden? The young man thought. His head felt like a mudhole. Pulling thoughts from it was slow and arduous.
“Of course, Raithwaite,” the driver’s voice replied with a sparkling chuckle, “Why else would I come to this hellhole?”
Raithwaite’s voice laughed at this. It was filled with a cruel kind of mirth; an executioner’s laugh. “Pass him through, boys!” he yelled with a growl.
“Shouldn’t we check over the wagon first?” another, meeker voice asked.
“Nonsense, this is Morden,” Raithwaite replied sharply, “Green Acre shepherd and personal friend. Pass him through!”
There was a chorus of “Yes, sir!” and the footsteps retreated back to their creaking, clanking door. The silence that followed its slam did not last. Gears cranked to life. Their tumbling carried on the night as the great iron gate of Big City lifted.
The wagon hitched and started into the bowels of a city built of scrap and spit-polish. The driver said nothing to the young man. They trundled through noisy, uneven streets. Music played under the shouts of drunks and the screaming of victims and the laughter of all those in between.
The young man caught snippets of the nightlife through the ripped bonnet. Electric streetlamps glowed pale blue, creating shadow puppets on the canvas. The chattering crowd moved reluctantly out of the wagon’s way. Crooked buildings dotted with flickering lights reached for the sky. The young man had never seen life after dark, never seen light produced by anything other than kerosene or fire or the moon. It excited him. His poor body reacted with a rush of nausea. It only relented after he’d gritted his teeth and pressed his eyes closed as tightly as he could.
Gradually, the noise and the light fell away. At last, the wagon rumbled to a stop with a quiet “whoa” from the driver to his horse.
“Alright,” the driver called, “we’re here.”
The legs above the young man stood and hopped down. Gravity pulled the man’s visage into view. He had an old face, crinkled like paper and half covered with a thick white beard. His brilliant green eyes sparkled like stars. They looked hungry, and they made the boy afraid. His breath quickened.
“How are you feeling?” The driver asked. His voice was kinder than his stare.
The young man attempted a reply. His throat refused to comply. The old man watched the younger’s feeble attempt and held up a hand.
“Shhhhh,” he said, holding a long and delicate finger to his lips, “you’re not well. You should be dead. Sleep instead.”
The young man could not resist the command. The void opened up and swallowed him once more.
III.
The wagon burned like a funeral pyre. He watched the fire consume, and felt the pangs of hunger grip his stomach. A man was crawling from the wreckage, scraping at the dirt with broken fingers and leaving a swath of blood in his wake. The night made it a black, iron-scented mirror; flames danced within it.
The young man could smell the blood, and his hunger pangs clawed deeper. The crawling man was just in front of him now. He looked up and reached out a pleading hand. The young man saw himself in the shadows of this dying man’s face. He reached back. His dying self saw clearly now what offered its hand, and his eyes widened. His scream was cut off as the young man pounced, ripping his doppelgänger’s throat away with sharpened teeth that shouldn’t have been his. He fed for a long, long time. In the reflecting pool of the dead him’s blood, he saw his own face in the fire. His brown eyes had become a dancing, sparkling green. The features were gaunt and shadowed and strange. Starvation gave way to fear. He let loose the howling scream he had stolen from his dead self’s vocal cords.
Silty morning light dusted the boy’s closed eyelids. They shot open as he screamed, and he was blinded. There was a roaring in his ears that did not fade. He gradually realized that it was many voices become one. Men and women were shouting and bartering, children laughed, dogs barked. His vision filtered back in from the white. He rose to a sitting position, and this time the world did not spin nearly as violently. The wagon he lay in had been emptied. He stretched. Bones popped, and aches grumbled in his muscles, but they felt sure of themselves again. He rubbed his head and wiped the sleep from his eyes. The bandages on his hands had been removed; his palms were pink with freshly healed skin. The memory of the flesh sloughing off of them as he slid down the spear’s handle made them burn. He balled and unballed his fists, squeezing the phantom fire from them.
The young man crawled to the flaps at the back of the wagon on shaky limbs and pulled them aside. Full, hot sun blinded him again, and he nearly tumbled to the ground. The wagon was parked dead center in a large market square. It was dirt and scrubby grass, but the roads and walkways that fed into the square were cobbled. These paved paths wound their way through a maze of buildings and hovels stacked high into the hazy ozone. They were built from the wreckage of the world that had come before theirs; metal and wood and plastic scavenged from the dead. Other trade wagons dotted the square, and a crowd larger than the population of Finn’s village milled and buzzed with the excitement of market day.
Finn. That was his name. It had come back to him. He was from a village on the rim— Weester. That was all that came back. How he’d ended up walking the wastes, and for how long, was lost to him. He remembered his village, but how long had it been since he’d last been there? Perhaps he had survived an attack. Maybe Weester had been burned like the wagon in his nightmare.
The dream was fading already. Finn tried to pull at the strings of memory. It made his head throb. He gave up, taking in the rabble. Wagons and booths sold pottery and trinkets, meat and medicine. Crowds convulsed around them. The largest knot of people, though, was gathered around the wagon he peered out of.
His wagon had higher walls than your average trade wagon. It loomed over the crowd. Shelves that folded down on locking hinges lined it from top to bottom. They were filled with fresh produce. Ripe tomatoes, dirty potatoes, carrots, apples, corn, and other crops were stacked in baskets five high and ten wide along the wagon’s long length. City dwellers pushed their money across the woodslab counter that separated them from the wagon and its driver. The old man took the coin and the orders, fishing fruits and vegetables from the baskets and filling the customer’s sacks. For the higher shelves, he had a long, hooked pole. The old man nimbly used it to pluck baskets off near the top, fill an order, and return the basket to its place. The deftness of the man’s hands betrayed years of experience.
Finn watched the old man make trade. He handed a woman a bag of cucumbers. There was a child wrapped in robes against the sun, holding on to her leg. The child waved to the old man as her mother dragged her back into the crowd. He waved back, then turned toward the wagon for something, smiling to himself. His gaze caught Finn, and his little smile grew. He gestured for Finn to approach without breaking the pace of his work. Finn climbed down from the wagon on unsure feet.
“How are you feeling?” the old man asked over the din of the crowd. He was hooking a basket of apples from the top shelf of the wagon and lowering them down.
“Good, I think,” Finn said. His voice was clotted from disuse.
The man chuckled quietly and clapped Finn on the shoulder with a strong, firm hand. He leveled cloudy, blue eyes at the young man. They were warm. He let go of Finn and turned to fill a man’s cowhide sack with apples from the basket he’d brought down. The man gave some money and took the ripe, fresh fruits.
“You’ve been asleep for nearly three days,” the old man said, working. “I found you in the ditch. I was sure you’d die.”
“Only three?” Finn asked, surprised. “ My hands–”
“Special salve. Got it from a traveling doctor. It works miracles, and works them quickly.”
Finn looked at his hands again. His palms were pink and supple.
“Thank—” he began.
The old man was assisting a boy who had handed him a list.
“Help me, would you? Get the peppers down,” he interrupted, pointing to a basket at the top of the wagon.
Finn started, suddenly embarrassed that he hadn’t bothered to help without being asked. He grabbed the pole and fished the peppers from their roost.
“Where are we?” He asked, handing over the peppers.
“Big City. It’s market week.”
“I didn’t know there were places with this many people.”
“It’s the only one,” the old man said matter-of-factly.
“You trade for the Green Acres?”
“Marvelous observation,” the man said with another warm chuckle. “My name is Morden. You are?”
“Finn.”
“Pleasure, my boy. We have much to talk about, but not just now. Business is booming. We can talk after the crowds have gone away.”
IV.
Half of Morden’s produce was gone by the time the market closed at seven in the evening.
“You were in the ditch, face down,” Morden sighed, sagging his thin frame onto a stool by the fire. The old man stared into the flames. “I saw you twitch, so I stopped.”
Finn knelt by the flames, stoking them. They were licking the bottom of the cookpot. A thickening stew inside bubbled talkatively. The savory aroma made Finn’s stomach rumble.
“Why?” Finn asked
Morden laughed. “Why what? Why not leave you to die?”
“You could have. Most would. I was nearly dead, anyway.”
Morden didn’t answer. The sky was purpling like a bruise as the sun fell away. Windows and doorways flickered to life with electric light. Cloaked men in the uniform of the city guard appeared on the narrow, crowded streets. They held keys to the little doors on the base of each streetlamp. Opening them, they flicked on the hidden switches within. The lights came to life, and the shadows retreated from their pale blue glow.
“Do you remember anything at all?” Morden asked after a prolonged silence. There was another before Finn replied.
“I am from Weester,” he said finally.
“I know the place,” Morden said. “As far as I know, it hasn’t been destroyed. It’s far out on the rim though, and news can only travel so fast.”
“How can I return?”
Morden pondered a moment.
“On foot, you’d surely die,” he said. “You’d have to go by wagon.”
“I’ve got no money for a wagon,” Finn sighed.
“It is on my route.”
Finn snapped a glance at the old man. “You’d let me travel with you?”
“So long as you assist me in trade until we get there. It will be a long trip. Month or so.”
“Yes. I owe you my life.”
Morden raised a hand. “Nonsense. For that, you owe me nothing. For the ride home, you owe me some labor.”
Finn found himself choked by gratitude and unable to find words. “Stew should be finished soon,” was all he could manage.
“Good,” Morden said. The old man’s eyes were closed. “We’ve earned it.”
Morden shifted in his seat. Suddenly, he started.
“I nearly forgot, I’ve one more thing to do before–”
Morden’s words were cut off by a sharp, painful intake of breath. The sound drew Finn’s attention from dinner. Morden was doubled over, his wizened face screwed up in pain as he rubbed at his left knee.
“Sir—”
“I’m alright,” Morden managed. The words were taut. “Just this knee. Damn it all; I’ve got a delivery that must be made this evening.”
“I can make it,” Finn replied eagerly. He was already on his feet. Morden shook his head.
“No,” the old man breathed, “you don’t know the city–”
“Give me directions.”
Morden’s tired eyes considered Finn for a moment. He nodded.
“Alright.”
Morden stood with a groan. He straightened himself out with considerable effort and hobbled to the wagon. Mounted beneath the driver’s seat was a large, riveted lockbox. It was the size of a footlocker. Their money from the day was inside. Morden produced a key from the folds of his robe and opened it. His hand disappeared within. When it reappeared, it was holding onto a purple pouch of coins.
“I owe a friend of mine some money, and he owes me a package. I need you to pay the man and bring me back my package.”
He handed the money to Finn, who examined it in the firelight.
“Which way?” Finn asked. He looked around the narrow streets and alleyways that led out of the city square in which they were encamped. There were dozens of paths running between the buildings, all twisting and turning into a maze of epic proportions. Finn noticed suddenly that not all of the streets were well-lit. Many of the lights flickered, and some were burnt out entirely. Walkways twisted away into the inky darkness between the buildings and hovels.
“That way,” Morden said. He pointed toward a street directly across from them— an unlit one.
“Follow that road there until you come to the end of the street,” Morden said. “It should spit you out onto Stratbury Lane; there’ll be a sign. Can you read?”
Finn nodded.
“Okay, good. Take a left there and follow it down until you reach another square. There will be a fountain, and the ground there will be stone instead of dirt and grass. Walk directly through to the other side, and there will be a narrow alley. Bolger’s shop is at the end. There’ll be a bottle hanging over the door. Hurry up now, so you don’t miss supper.”
Finn hurried into the dark. Between the working ones, silhouettes shuffled past Finn in a web of shadow. They became grimy dregs and fear-eyed peasants when he passed a lighted stretch. Beggars reached out with broken hands, pleading and grabbing at him. Finn held the money tightly in his pocket, white-knuckling it so that no one could take it in the dark.
Above him, the sky could only be seen in chunks and pieces. Everything was so close and cluttered. Finn found himself feeling claustrophobic amongst it. He came to a parallel street, the intersection aglow with one of the light posts. The light, and the fact that the street was wider, eased Finn’s anxiety.
A crudely painted sign marked this crooked street as Stratbury Lane. Finn took a left as Morden had instructed. His footsteps echoed and bounced. He suddenly noticed that he walked alone on Stratbury Lane. The beggars and riff-raff had died, leaving the night silent. Finn quickened his pace. Three more steps and his foot caught in a crack in the cobbles. He tripped, choosing to hold onto the money in his pocket instead of catching himself. The ground kissed his forehead hard. A pained haze clouded him as he sat up. He couldn’t understand why his footsteps were still echoing, nor why they had sped up. They were becoming louder instead of fading. Then, the hairs on his neck stood up. His heart chilled and fell into his stomach.
Not my footsteps.
Finn scrabbled to his feet and ran too. The other steps matched his pace. They were getting closer. All the streetlights were out. The alley’s dirty walls were closing in again. There was hot breath on his neck, a knife point brushing the skin above his kidney; any moment now, something was going to grab him and drag him into the dark—
He burst from the black, embracing the comforting glow of the square Morden had told him he would find. Nobody followed him from the shadows. The footfalls had gone silent. Finn stopped against the dead fountain in the center of the square. He turned and scanned the mouth of the alley, catching his breath. Nothing moved. The owner of the footsteps had gone.
Finn’s fear faded as he took in the square. The fountain was carved to resemble the great iron gate. The stone it was hewn from looked thirsty. Its pool was filled with trash and leaves. Water had not poured from this gate’s watchtowers in a long time. Benches lined the sides of the square. A few people slept on them here and there, huddled under blankets or rags or whatever they had. None took notice of Finn. He saw the alley he was meant to go down. It was directly across from the way he’d come. He approached. A flowery mildew began to permeate the air as he did so. It grew stronger as he drew closer to the mouth of the alley. Something unpleasant undercoated the stale flower smell. It was metallic; there was a tang to it. Finn could almost taste it. He steeled himself and started down toward the man named Bolger’s shop.
As Morden had said, a large bottle fashioned from many colors of broken glass hung above an iron-reinforced wooden door at the end. The word “perfumist” was painted in elegant script across one of the multicolored panes. The smell had grown even stronger now. Finn realized that it was coming from this place. It was as if his mouth and nose had been stuffed with dead floral arrangements. The metallic undercoat bit his throat. Finn knocked several times, then waited. He heard nothing from inside. After a few moments, he knocked again, louder this time.
Sudden, frantic scrambling and cursing broke out behind the door. Several locks loosened. The door creaked open a crack, and a little bald head poked out.
“What, what do you want, huh? We’re closed!” the leathery little man barked. His voice was a scrape. The robes he wore had once been finery; now they were stained and soiled. Little tarnished pomanders hung from his cuffs. The ugly silver balls had once been filled with aromatic herbs, long since rotted away.
“Are- Are you Bolger?” Finn stuttered.
The scent man’s flinty green eyes narrowed. He peered over Finn’s shoulder suspiciously. “Who wants to know?” he growled.
“Morden asked me to bring you this,” Finn said. He thrust the sack of coins toward the stout little man.
Bolger looked at it. He gently took the money from Finn’s outstretched hand. Weighing it in his palm a moment, he frowned.
“It’s light,” he spat.
Finn shrugged. Bolger rolled his eyes.
“Wait here,” he said.
Bolger slammed the door in Finn’s face. Finn wasn’t sure what to do. Before he could figure it out, Bolger had opened the door wide. He shoved a bottle into Finn’s hands. A liquid sloshed inside. The smell of cactus blooms wafted from it.
“This is for Morden. What he likes. Strong.”
“Okay,” Finn said, taking the package hesitantly. He stared at the perfumist. Bolger stared back.
“What, errand boy? You’ve done your errand, so go home!” Bolger spat. He slammed the door, leaving Finn alone in the dark.
Finn turned the package over in his hand. The pleasant desert smell had overtaken the rotten flowers. It had cut the metal smell down, too. He could still detect it, but would not have noticed if it hadn’t been so strong before. Tucking the bottle under the cloak Morden had let him borrow, Finn turned and made his way back toward the square. The lights there had dimmed. There was one in each corner of the space, and a fifth in the middle. The middle light flickered, and two of the corner lights had burned out completely. Nobody slept on the benches anymore.
Finn’s scalp crawled with mosquito legs over his skull. Something was wrong. The shadows of the square were too long. Finn’s heart had crept to the bottom of his throat. It beat a rapid, panicked rhythm that pulsed behind his eardrums. The metal smell had suddenly gotten strong again. He tasted it. It was the stench of iron in a man’s blood, and it hung heavy on every square foot of air.
The square had not been entirely abandoned. A lone figure still slumped on the bench below the fountain, ten feet or so from where Finn stood. Their chin seemed to impale their own chest. Arms were folded loosely across a thin, wasted torso. Finn could smell the body: piss and iron and dead flowers. He suddenly knew the figure was dead. Dread filled him. He took a step toward the cadaver, unsure of what to do. Then the corpse burped.
Finn yelped. His heart attempted to burst out of his mouth. He managed to bite it back. The corpse burped again and looked up at Finn. The man’s bleary eyes filled with inebriated distaste.
“What? Ye scared of an old pissant?” The drunk gurgled.
“I-I-” Finn stuttered.
“Go on then, run off, pansy,” the drunk laughed.
Finn backed away. Ice still clung to his heart. A skittering of loose rocks above him snapped his attention from the dirty man. They tumbled from the roof of the building to his left. He heard the drunk make a confused noise as a shadow fell from the dark above and knocked Finn to the ground. Whatever it was, it was big. Finn shielded his face and pinched his eyes shut.
“What the hell are you?” Finn heard the drunk ask. He replied to his own question with a choked gasp. Finn heard bones snap and meat squelch. He felt hot blood spatter over him. There was no screaming, just the sounds of viscera being parted from itself. Finn didn’t want to look, but he did so anyway. Green sapphire eyes, inset in a shadow shaped like a man built wrong, loomed over the drunk’s limp form. A hand of ink held the dead man’s heart. It still beat, dripping blood into the open chest cavity of the corpse. The hand raised the heart. A red gash of mouth ripped open the shadow to meet it. It fed like a spider, shriveling the organ in seconds. The shadow discarded the used heart and turned its eyes to Finn. It took a step toward him. Bloody iron wafted off its form. Finn’s legs refused to work. He could only watch death come.
A cry of “Oi!” Echoed through the air, taking both the shadow and Finn’s attention. A guardsman stood at the mouth of one of the alleys. He’d raised his electric lantern and flipped a switch, making the light flash. Another switch flip and the lantern began to wail from a speaker, whining high into the night to alert the city. The guard began to approach.
“You there!” He yelled at Finn. Finn turned to where the shadow had been standing. It had melted away into the night.
“You there, stay where you are!” The guard called.
The guard had chains in his hand. Finn’s legs had feeling again. He stood and bolted.
“Stop!” The guard screamed after him, “Stop! SickBrain!”
Finn did not stop. He fled into the night.
V.
Bells were ringing throughout the city by the time Finn stumbled back to Morden and the wagon. His lungs burned, and his breaths came in short, hitching gasps.
“Finn, thank goodness,” Morden called, standing up from the fire, “I heard the alarms. What is going on?”
“Body… a body in the square,” Finn panted, his fingers digging into his kneecaps as he struggled to catch his breath. Morden’s face grew serious at the news.
“What?” the old man asked, rounding the fire and approaching Finn. He put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and leaned closer. For a moment, Finn smelled iron again, and he wanted to vomit. He took the bottle Bolger had given him from beneath his cloak. The stopper came out easily with a short yank. Finn held the scent to his nose and inhaled. It eradicated the blood smell, calming him.
“A man, dead,” Finn said. Morden’s grip tightened on his shoulder.
“What do you mean–”
“Sick Brain! There’s a Sick Brain in the city!”
The words echoed from somewhere amongst the buildings. It was some ways off, but moving quickly and heading toward them. The dark windows towering around them lit up one by one in rapid succession as the Cryer awoke the populace of Big City.
“SickBrain?” Morden breathed. His blue eyes filled with dark worry.
“What’s a SickBrain?” Finn asked, re-stoppering the bottle of perfume. He handed it to Morden, who took it without looking and slid it into the pocket of his robe.
“Come, Finn, in the wagon now,” Morden said. He guided Finn by his shoulder toward the opening at the back of the wagon.
“What’s a Sick Brain?” Finn asked again. The old man was surprisingly strong when he wanted to be.
“A witch hunt, that’s what it is.” Morden’s voice was an urgent whisper. “Get in the wagon and wait until the Cryer is gone. He’ll be here soon.”
Finn climbed into the wagon and hunkered down beneath some blankets as the voice of the Cryer drew closer. Eventually, the cries entered the square, loud and piercing. Finn heard Morden exchange a few words with the man. Their tone was hushed and hurried, and Finn caught only pieces of what the men were saying.
“…It’s not a false alarm…Heart ripped out… smell of iron and blood… Fourth in the last several days…”
The conversation ended, and the Cryer’s calls faded away into the night as he continued on through the city.
“Okay, Finn,” Morden called.
Finn climbed down from the wagon. The tenants of Big City who’d dared to leave their homes to check out the commotion nervously tittered about. Eventually, most went back inside. The lights in the windows didn’t turn out as quickly as they’d come on. Some just stayed on. Guards had entered the square, turning up the electric lamps to brighter settings and throwing light as far as it would go.
Finn slumped by the fire, exhaustion suddenly settling into his bones. He looked up at Morden. The old man’s face was grave behind the flickering light of the flames.
“Why did you put me in the wagon?” He asked.
“You’re new to town,” Morden replied. “They’re scared. Strangers stick out.”
“What is a Sick Brain, Morden?” Finn asked again.
The old man sighed and sat down opposite Finn, folding himself into his robes.
“A mutated boogeyman,” Morden said tiredly, “ A big bad wolf. A weaver of nightmares and infector of minds. Nothing to be afraid of. This was just a murder. There have been a few this week, according to my friends in the City Watch. All of Big City is on edge.”
Finn turned his head to look at Morden. The old man’s gaze was trained on the flames, unblinking and flat.
“Did all of them have their heart removed?” Finn asked.
Morden did not answer right away. When he did, he did not look up.
“I’m not sure.”
“The Cryer said that that was the proof. Does a SickBrain take the hearts of what it kills?”
“The SickBrain is not real,” Morden said, still not taking his gaze from the fire.
“I saw it,” Finn said.
Morden laughed.
“It smelled like blood. Its eyes glowed green.”
“Nonsense. Cut that kind of talk.”
“I’ve been having dreams—“
“I said it is nonsense!”
The fury in Morden’s voice made Finn recoil. The old man softened at that and heaved a heavy breath.
“Apologies, Finn. Long night. Longer day ahead of us.”
Finn was quiet. Morden ladled stew from the pot into a crude wooden bowl.
“Have supper,” he said, handing it to Finn. Finn held the steaming meal close to his face, inhaling the savory smells. Carrots and potatoes and meat swam in a thick broth in the bowl. As Finn put it to his lips, a beating heart emerged from the brown liquid. Each palpitation splashed broth from the bowl. The smell turned rancid. Finn stared in horror. His eyes turned to Morden. The old man’s eyes had lost their blue in the firelight. Now they danced in sickly glowing green; the old man bared him a grin of crooked, razor-like teeth.
Finn screamed, tossing the bowl away. It dribbled into the dirt. Carrots and potatoes and meat. No heart. Morden was staring, his blue eyes concerned.
“I-I’m sorry,” Finn fumbled, “something is wrong with me, I—”
“You need rest, my boy,” Morden said gently. He hobbled to his feet and took Finn by the shoulder, guiding the young man up to a standing position.
“Go lay down.”
Finn nodded and turned for the wagon.
VI.
Sleep was not a willing friend to Finn. When it did finally come, it was fitful and riddled with horrors. His dreams had him walking the claustrophobic streets of Big City in the dark. His eyes glowed green in the puddles of blood dotting the potholed walkways. He tried to rip them from his skull, but they only glowed brighter. Other green eyes stared at him from the endless shadows. Footsteps were always close behind him, no matter how fast he ran. Then there was the hunger. It gnawed at his gut as a starving coyote would on a bone. The smell of blood made it chew faster at the lining of his stomach.
It was a woman’s blood. He could tell the difference. It was sweeter on the nostril. Her heart beat rapidly somewhere in the dark. She knew he was coming. He could see her heartbeat in the dark, a guiding light. She was just ahead of him, running. His own pace quickened. He was so much faster. He caught her, clasping a hand over her mouth to muffle her scream. His fingers were like blades. They reached into her chest as though it were soft cheese. Warm blood wet his fingers and his stomach roared. He bit into her neck to taste the iron. A feast, a feast for a starving man. A starving SICK–
Bells ripped Finn from his nightmare. He shot up. His mouth tasted like a sword. He was slick with blood, sick with hunger–
But the blood was only sweat. He hungered for the eggs and bacon he smelled. Finn found that his soiled pile of clothes from the previous night had been replaced by a neatly folded stack of linens. He put them on gratefully and stepped out into the morning light.
Morden was scrambling eggs and bits of bacon in a pan over the fire. The sun had not fully risen; neither had the crowd. Both would be arriving in full within the next hour. Morden motioned for him to eat quickly.
“Last big day,” he said, handing Finn a plate. “Tomorrow, we leave for the Green Acre to resupply. Then, we make for Weester.”
Finn ate. The crowds came with the sun. They read the large notice posted to the bulletin board in the center of the square. A curfew had been set until the SickBrain could be found and executed. All citizens were subject to search and seizure. Any suspicious activity was to be reported. Guard patrols in the square had doubled from the prior day. A man was posted at every entrance and exit to the market square. Three-man squads drifted through the rabble. Citizens were grabbed at random and searched. Whispers of murder and SickBrains threaded every conversation.
“Did you hear about the feller last night?” a one-eyed woman in a cloak asked Finn as he handed her her peppers. Finn just nodded.
“Heart pulled out, smell of iron and blood on the air,” the woman continued, “I ain’t never seen a SickBrain myself, but I know the signs.”
“I’m sure the guards will find the culprit,” Finn said quietly. He didn’t like the note of excitement in the woman’s voice.
“And now, they say a girl has gone missing this morning,” the woman continued. Finn just responded by pointing to the next customer. She sharpened her gaze to a point at the slight as she faded back into the crowd. Her one remaining eye was a brilliant jade green.
Finn saw the guards take several people. Nobody else seemed to care. Most wore the rags of beggars. They ripped them from the crowd and pulled them into secret places Finn could not see. None came back.
“The Guards are taking people,” Finn observed to Morden after the third or fourth abduction he witnessed. Morden nodded.
“SickBrains breed witch hunts,” Morden said, “they crack a few skulls, kill a few beggars, and never find anything.”
“There’s talk of a girl missing this morning.”
Morden’s mouth tightened into a grimace. He did not comment.
A man took a bag of cucumbers and left his money on the table. Finn reached for the bits. The sun was sinking, and the rabble was thinning rapidly. Nobody wished to break curfew. Guards lit the street lamps earlier than usual and set them brighter than they needed to be, burning off the encroaching shadows. Finn put the bits away. He was sure he’d had their last customer when somebody cleared their throat. He turned around to see a guard, sallow-eyed and serious.
“Can I help you?” Finn asked.
“A girl is missing,” the guard said gruffly.
“He’s been here all day, sir,” Morden said, coming to Finn’s side.
The guard gave Morden a stinking look. “And last night?”
“Here as well,” Morden said.
“A SickBrain conspirator says otherwise.”
Finn felt prickles of fear on his neck. Morden scoffed.
“SickBrain conspirator? You’ve captured an assistant to the boogeyman?”
“We found scraps of the girl’s clothes around the door of his shop,” the guard replied. Several other guards had joined him now.
“When questioned, he mentioned a boy. A helper of yours, Morden. We need to search your wagon.”
“This is ridiculous!” Morden thundered, “Get me Raithwaite, I am well—“
“The orders come from Raithwaite himself, Morden,” the guard interrupted. His tone was condescending. Two of the other guards had brushed past Finn and Morden and were ransacking the wagon.
“I’ll have all your cloaks for this,” Morden blustered, “I’ll—”
“Sir,” one of the pillaging guards called. Their superior turned from Finn and Morden. The other man approached with a bundle in his hands.
“What is it, Lawrence?” The superior guard said. His man shoved the bundle into his hands.
“Clothes, sir. Soiled with blood. The smell is there.”
The superior guard turned back to Morden and Finn. He held the bloody clothes tightly in his hands. They reeked of iron and death. A look of triumph swam under his stoic features.
“Take the boy,” he said.
Two guards had come to either side of Finn. They grabbed his shoulders roughly.
“No!” Morden shouted. He tried to intervene and was kicked to the ground by the superior. He crumpled to the dust with a pitiful moan. The superior knelt to him, palming the old man’s face and squeezing hard. He turned Morden’s eyes up to his.
“You’ve a reputation and an employer that saves you this day, old man,” the guard whispered tightly, “but do not test me. I’ll burn you up on suspicion of conspiracy. I can make it stick. Trust me.”
“Get away from him,” Finn yelled. He struggled against the iron grip of his captors. The superior guard let go of Morden, making sure to whap the old man hard across the cheek. He stood and turned to Finn. Without a word, he punched Finn in the face with a gauntleted hand. Finn felt his nose give with a pop and crunch. Colors exploded in front of his eyes and faded to black. His form went limp, and he was carried off.
VII.
Black. The smell of iron. Green eyes dancing in the dark.
Finn did not expect to wake back up, but the eyes faded, and the darkness drained. The smell remained. There was blood caked around his broken nose. It coated his throat. He couldn’t breathe through his crooked nostrils.
A coughing fit was what had awoken him. Finn hawked a brown and black loogie and tried to wipe his face. His hands did not obey. They were bound behind his back, securing him to the sturdy post in the middle of the market square. He didn’t know why he was tied to the post, nor did he know why he was up so high. The din of the crowd below his wooden platform was too loud. He couldn’t think. His head lolled to his left. Another man was tied to a post there. His face was bloody and bruised, a nearly unrecognizable, broken mess. Finn did recognize him, however; it was Bolger, the perfumist.
Finn’s swimming vision slipped down to the crowd below him. The masses packed the square wall to wall. Dregs spilled into the streets that spidered out from the edges. They roared as Finn stirred. It was an angry, stupid sound that clawed at Finn’s eardrums.
Finn sniffed hard. One of his nasal passages cleared. It welcomed in the twinging scent of alcohol. At his feet was a pyre of scraps and trash collected from the corners of the city. The crowd was feeding the heap. Others were soaking the trash with more alcohol. Most of the crowd just stared up at him in fear and anger, holding torches at the ready. They convulsed against one another, a human sea of rage and terror. One man, tall and thin and wearing the scrap metal armor of the town guard, stepped forward.
“Where’s the girl, SickBrain,” he asked, sneering. His rough, soggy voice was familiar; it dawned on Finn that this was the guard who had turned him away at the gate. What had Morden called this man?
“Raithwaite?” Finn asked. His voice was a rough whisper that struggled from a dry throat.
Raithwaite’s hand slashed across Finn’s face like a blade.
“The girl,” Raithwaite hissed.
“I’ve done nothing.”
Now the hand was a fist. It rearranged Finn’s crumpled nose into a new jumble of shards. Finn saw stars. His jaw quit working.
“Where is the girl?” Raithwaite shouted. The crowd echoed the question.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” Finn whispered. His teeth felt loose. The words were swollen and muffled, as though he’d said them around a ball gag.
“Die with a clean conscience, SickBrain. Where is she?”
“I’ve done nothing, please. Talk to Morden, I–”
The guard turned away from Finn to face the crowd, raising a hand.
“The SickBrain lies,” he shouted. Echoing cries of fury reverberated back from the crowd in response.
“What shall we do with him, then?” the guard asked the crowd.
Gradually, the voices contorted from a garbled mess of rage into a uniform call:
“Cleanse him! Cleanse him! Cleanse him!”
Someone emerged from the knotted masses and handed a torch to Raithewaite. The guard turned back to Finn and stared at him coldly. Without a word, he knelt and touched the torch to the edge of the pyre; it ignited with a sudden whoomp. The flames raced up Finn’s legs. The fiery tongues scraped across nerve endings, bringing Finn’s fogged mind back to sharp, clear alertness. His scream bypassed the bloody clogs in his throat and rang out clean and clear and true. He saw everyone and everything in the crowd all at once. Angry faces, terror and awe written behind the fury. Before the heat could pop his eyes from their sockets, he saw Morden at the back of the crowd. There was an odd look on his face. Not one of sorrow, no, it was more nonchalant than that. His blue— no, green, glowing green eyes— seemed to say, “Well, what can you do?”
The old man raised a hand. Finn followed it with his eyes. Morden wiggled his fingers, and suddenly Finn was sleepy. So sleepy. He could not feel the flames anymore. He let his chin touch his burning chest. A final deep breath in. He did not taste the smoke. The only taste and smell he knew now was iron. Finn fell asleep as the flames engulfed him.
VIII.
The crowd had cleared the square by nightfall. Morden was hitching his horse to the wagon. The bruise on his cheek where the guard had struck him was an ugly, purple-brown.
“I like the scent you’re wearing,” a voice said from behind him.
Morden smiled softly to himself and turned to Raithwaite. The guard stood, his arms folded over his chest.
“Thank you,” Morden said, “I’ve always loved desert flowers.”
“Better make the bottle last now that Bolger is gone.”
Morden raised his brows and nodded. “It’s unfortunate he had to get so greedy and talkative. There are other perfumists, however.”
Raithwaite scoffed under his breath, shaking his head. “You talk of greed. Don’t come back here for a while, Morden. This was a mess. The girl wasn’t part of the deal.”
“You got your SickBrain, did you not?” Morden said with a shrug. He pulled a pouch of coins from his robe and tossed them at the guard. Raithwaite caught them and felt the weight. He nodded and hid them away under his cloak.
“Two months,” the guard said, turning away, “and only beggars from now on.”
Morden was climbing into the wagon’s seat. When his feet landed on the lockbox below it, a whimper responded. Something knocked frantically on the inside of the lid. Morden stomped on the wood hard. The noises quieted. He looked down at Raithwaite and smiled. It did not touch his cold, green eyes.
“I take what I wish, when I wish,” he said. Morden snapped the reins. The horse shuddered into motion.
“Renton is missing,” Raithwaite called.
“Who?” Morden asked, not bothering to look over his shoulder.
“The guard who took your boy into custody.”
“Good. Tell your other guards to watch who they strike in the future.”
Raithwaite did not reply. He watched, fingering the pouch of money below his cloak, as Morden of the Green Acre rode out of the square, heading for the gate of Big City.
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