I adjust my grip on the gun and close my eyes. If I do this, Mom will live, Dad will live, Briggs and Felix and Luke will live. My friends and teammates and their families will live. The entire world Pestilence has set his sights on will live.
All I have to do is move my finger an inch.
I’ve never thought myself a coward, but for a single second, I nearly fold.
Fuck your morals, Burns, don’t make your death all for nothing.
I suck a breath in, exhale, then pull the trigger.
BOOM!
The explosive sound is almost more shocking than the shotgun’s kickback, the blast echoing throughout the silent forest.
Ahead of me, the horseman grunts, the spray of pellets hitting him in the chest, the force of it knocking him off his steed. His horse rears up, pawing the air and letting out a frightened shriek, then takes off.
My gut roils.
Going to sick myself.
The horse is still racing away.
Perhaps it’s the horse that’s spreading the plague and not the man. Or perhaps both are.
Can’t risk it.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper as I line up my sights once more.
It’s easier to pull the trigger this time. Maybe it’s because I did it once before, maybe it’s that I’m ready to feel the jerk of the shotgun or hear the blast of fire and gunpowder, or maybe it’s that killing a beast is easier than killing a man—no matter that neither is what they appear to be.
The steed’s front legs kick up, its body briefly contorting as it lets out an agonized bray. It collapses onto its side a hundred feet from its master, and then it doesn’t move.
I spend several seconds catching my breath.
It’s done.
God save me, I actually did it.
Setting my weapon aside, I head for the road, my eyes glued to the horseman. His armor is a mess. I can’t tell if the pellets bit through his breastplate or if they simply twisted the metal, but several of them have torn through that pretty face of his.
Hot bile burns the back of my throat. Already a corona of blood is blooming around his head, and even though his face is a mass of wounds, I hear him groan.
“Oh God,” I whisper. This thing is still alive.
I barely have time to turn to the side before I retch.
His breath is coming in wet pants. He reaches for me, his fingers brushing my boot.
I jump back, letting out a cry and nearly falling on my ass.
I didn’t even realize how close I’d crept up to him.
Need to end this.
I race back to my gun on unsteady feet.
Why did I leave it behind?
Through my haze of panic, I can’t remember which tree I left it at, and the horseman is still alive.
I give up my search for the weapon and head back to the little camp I set up for myself. Among my things are matches and lighter fluid.
My hands shake as I grab them. Mechanically I head back.
Are you really going to do this? I stare dumbly down at the items in my hand. He’s still alive and you’re going to burn him while he breathes. You, a firefighter.
Fire is no clean death. In fact, it’s got to be one of the worst ways to go. I don’t hate Pestilence nearly enough because I can barely stand the thought of what I’m about to do.
I step back up to the horseman and flip open the lid of the lighter fluid. I bite my lip until it bleeds as I overturn the bottle, the liquid glugging out of it. I douse him, head to foot. I have to pause to vomit again.
Then the bottle is empty.
I can’t manage to keep hold of the matches I pull out. My hands are shaking so badly I keep dropping them. Finally my hand steadies enough for me to grip one, but then the issue is striking the matchbox.
Again the horseman gropes for my ankle.
“… leeeeeseee …” he groans from the ruin of his mouth.
A cry escapes me. I think that was a plea.
Don’t look at him.
It takes five tries, but finally, I light one goddamn match. I don’t consciously mean to drop it—if I had it my way, I probably would’ve stared at the flame until it burned down to my fingers—but alas, my hand shook and the match fell.
Pestilence’s clothes light on fire immediately, and I hear him give an agonized shout.
The smell of burning flesh wafts up from him as the fire builds on itself.
I realize belatedly that his armor is blocking the bulk of the fire, making an already slow death that much slower. He’s burning too hot and too thoroughly to touch, or else I might’ve removed his armor or stamped out the flames.
I begin to dry heave. I’m not sure I could’ve given this creature a dirtier death.
He screams until he can’t.
No one deserves to go like this. Not even a harbinger of the apocalypse.
I back away, and then my legs give out.
This doesn’t feel like some noble deed. I don’t feel like the hero, saving the world.
I feel like a murderer.
Should’ve packed myself a beer—or five. This is not something to watch sober.
But I do. I watch his skin bubble and blacken and burn off. I watch him die slowly, each second so obviously agonizing. I stay rooted there for hours, sitting along this abandoned road that no one travels anymore. That entire time, my only witnesses are the trees that stand like sentinels around us.
Snow gathers along his body, melting against his smoldering remains.
At some point, I look up from him, only to notice that his horse is gone, a trail of blood and trampled snow leading off into the woods. Rationally, I know I should retrieve my shotgun and follow the horse’s trail until I find the beast, and then I should kill it.
Rationally, I know it—but that doesn’t mean I do any such thing.
Enough death for one day. Tomorrow I will finish the job.
The sky darkens. And still I sit, until the cold has seeped its way into my bones.
Eventually the elements force me to my tent. I unfold my stiff limbs, my entire body sore and sick. I don’t know if the creature’s plague has taken hold of me yet, or if this is simply what it feels like to neglect eating and drinking and finding shelter and warmth all day. Either way, I feel terribly sick. Terminally sick.
I collapse onto my sleeping bag, not bothering to pull it around me.
For better or worse, I did it.
Pestilence is dead.
Chapter 4
I wake to the feel of a hand at my throat.
“Of all the vile humans who’ve crossed my path, you just might be the worst.”
My eyes snap open.
A monster looms over me, his face pockmarked with bloody holes, his skin charred and twisted and missing in places.
I wouldn’t recognize him except for the eyes.
Angelic blue eyes. The shit they’re always painting on ceilings of churches.
This is my horseman.
Alive from the grave.
“Impossible,” I say, my voice hushed.
He smells like ash and burnt flesh.
How could he have survived that?
He squeezes my neck tighter. “You foolish human. In all the time I’ve existed, had you really never thought another hadn’t already attempted what you failed at?
“They tried to shoot me in Toronto, gut me in Winnipeg, bleed me out in Buffalo, and strangle me in Montreal. They tried to do all that and more in so many other towns with names I doubt you’d recognize because you fickle humans never bother to look beyond yourselves.”
Someone else has already … tried?
Tried and failed.
It’s like taking a glass of ice water to the face. Of course someone else has tried to end him. I should’ve known better. But I hadn’t seen footage of it, hadn’t heard any reports of the attempts. Whoever had tried to take him out hadn’t managed to alert the public that he can’t be killed.
“Everywhere I go,” he continues, “t
here’s someone like you. Someone who thinks they can kill me to save their malignant world.”
It’s hard to stare at his face, grotesque as it is. And yet it looks so much better than it did when I left him, back when he was nothing but ash.
Pestilence pulls me in close. “And now you will pay for daring to do so.”
He yanks me up by the throat.
Whatever vestiges of sleep clung to me, they’re now gone. I reach for his hand, yelping when I touch bone and sinew.
How can he possibly use a hand when all that’s left of it is bone and tendon? His grip is like iron, unyielding.
Pestilence drags me out of the tent, throwing me to the ground. My palms and knees sink into the shallow snow.
A moment later, a knee digs into my back. He runs his hands over my torso, feeling me for extra weapons. I shudder at the sensation. He’s touching me with raw bone. He reaches for my pockets, emptying them of my Swiss Army knife and my matchbook.
In the deep blue, pre-dawn glow, the forest has an almost sinister feel to it. It’s silent as the grave, its former inhabitants long gone.
Pestilence pauses after his inspection. “Where is your fight?” he asks derisively when I continue to just lay there. “You were fast to act before. Where is that damnable human fire now?”
I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that the lump of smoldering flesh I walked away from last night has somehow regenerated. And it talks.
“You have nothing to say to that? Hm.” A moment later, he grabs my wrists, binding them together over my head with a rough twine rope I’m pretty sure he nabbed from my things. “Well, it’s probably for the best. Mortal conversation always does leave something to be desired.”
The pressure against my back abates.
“Up,” he commands.
It takes me a second too long to process the order, so he uses the rope to drag me to my feet. Once again I get a good look at him.
He’s even more monstrous than I first thought. His hair is gone, his nose is gone, his ears are gone, his skin is still blackened. Hardly a man at all, and certainly nothing that should be alive.
His golden armor remains in place, looking unblemished even though it should be charred and bullet-riddled. I can’t see much of his arms under the armor, but they must be in bad shape judging by the way the metal rattles loosely around. And his hands … his hands are nothing more than white bone and bits of flesh, as are his feet and ankles.
At his waist, he wears one of my blankets, which he must’ve snatched while I was sleeping. I cringe at the thought.
Pestilence leads me back to the road by my bound wrists. I blanch when I see his white horse waiting patiently for its master, its flank coated with scarlet blood. It paws the snow-covered asphalt, huffing. When it sees me, it anxiously whinnies, sidestepping away.
Heedless of his horse’s mood, Pestilence secures the other end of the rope to the back of his steed’s saddle.
I glance between my tied wrists and his mount. “What are you doing?”
He ignores me, hoisting himself onto his horse.
“You’re not going to kill me?” I finally ask.
He turns around, that mess of a face looking embittered. “Oh no, I’m not letting you die. Too quick. Suffering is made for the living. And oh, how I will make you suffer.”
Chapter 5
All day Pestilence drives his horse down the highway at a brisk pace, forcing me to run behind him, or else be dragged by my wrists. It’s a small favor that I’m a firefighter and not an office worker; I’m used to hours upon hours of laborious work. Even still, while I might be able to keep up with rider and horse, it’s fucking uncomfortable, and soon, my warm clothes are dripping with sweat.
We pass through Whistler, and my eyes move from one familiar landmark to the next. This is my hometown, where I was born, where I spent winters snowboarding and summers splashing around Cheakamus Lake, where I learned to drive my family’s car, and where I had my first crush and my first kiss and every other milestone that means something to me. I have to blow a kiss goodbye to it all as we leave the town behind.
Hours I run, until my wrists are rubbed bloody and weariness closes in on me.
Can’t keep this up forever.
It doesn’t help that the horseman gives no indication when—or if—he’ll be stopping. Each kilometer feels like an eternity. When he eventually turns off the highway, I want to cry with joy. I don’t give two steaming shits about what horrors he might have in store for me next. So long as it means this run from hell is over, I’ll take them.
We follow a snow-covered road until it tees into a house. And then—praise the good Lord—we come to a stop in front of a house.
Pestilence hasn’t bothered to glance back at me since this morning, and even now as he hops off his steed and ties the reins against a nearby lamppost, I could be invisible for all the attention he gives me. But as soon as he comes back around his mount, it’s clear he hasn’t forgotten about me.
I suck in a breath at the sight of him. The angelic horseman I first laid eyes on is back, the torn up flesh of his face now mostly healed. There are still some red patches and shiny skin where bullet and burn wounds are healing, but he’s got a nose and lips and ears, so all the important bits are back. Even his hair has returned, though the golden waves of it are only just long enough to thread your fingers through.
Now that he’s all put back together, I can’t stop staring at him. I wish it was just horrified wonderment that pulls my gaze to him, but then I’d be lying.
He’s painfully beautiful, with his mournful blue eyes, and his high, proud cheekbones and the deadly set of his jaw. One of my hands twitches as I self-consciously try to tuck a lock of my sweaty brown hair behind my ear.
What is wrong with me?
“Did you enjoy your run?” he asks.
“Fuck you.” I don’t have the energy to put much venom into the oath.
He curls his upper lip anyway as he unties my rope from the saddle.
Like his face, his hands are mostly healed. I see no bone, no cartilage, no veins and arteries or any other manner of innards that several hours ago were outtards. But they do look a little red and scabby.
He turns from me, and I get a good look at the golden bow and quiver at his back.
He’s killed humans with those weapons, and he’ll kill more with them in the future, and the world is fucked to hell because he can’t die, and short of death, he won’t stop the killing.
So much for ending him.
The blanket is still tied around Pestilence’s waist, and that plus his bare feet and legs (also mostly healed) should look comical, but the horseman is a formidable man.
I stare for longer than necessary, and God forgive me, I can’t help but notice that his form is every bit as pleasing as his face. He’s got massive shoulders and narrow hips and I want to stab my eyes out now. There’s got to be some rule against ogling the guy you tried to murder.
Ahead of me, he jerks on the rope. I curse as I trip over myself trying to keep up as he makes his way up to the house.
I take in the two story home. It’s pretty, but fairly unexceptional; stained wood siding, forest green front door, a snow-covered planter box under one of the windows.
Why in the world did the horseman come to this place?
Pestilence strides right up to the front door and, lifting a foot, kicks it inward. That’s one way to open a door. The other way is trying the fucking knob like a normal person.
He drags me inside by the rope, as though I’m a naughty dog he must keep leashed.
From the silence of the house, it’s obvious the owners aren’t around, and they probably haven’t been since the evacuation warnings went out—thank God. Anywhere is better than here at the moment.
Pestilence crosses the living room, pulling me along by this damnable rope. Now that I’m not running for my life, all my other aches and pains are waking up. My wrists are beginning to throb and the sweat
that coats me is rapidly cooling against my body. I’m not even going to think about how sore my legs will be in the morning.
The horseman ties the rope to the stairway railing one, two, three times over.
“You do know the moment I’m out of your sight, I’m going to try to escape,” I say.
“Do I look worried, human?” he asks, giving the knot a final yank.
“I can’t tell, too many bits are missing.”
Not true, but he hasn’t seen his reflection yet, so he wouldn’t know.
Pestilence stares at me for a long second, his dislike for me nearly palpable, then heads upstairs, his footsteps echoing throughout the house.
I wasn’t kidding about the escape thing. The moment he’s gone, I attack the maze of knots like my life depends on it, which it does.
I’m desperately picking at the ties that bind me to the railing (When the fuck did this horseman learn to tie a proper knot?), when he comes back down carrying a fresh set of clothes. Clothes and duct tape.
All we need are some assless chaps and a paddle to round this party out. But I doubt Pestilence has that sort of suffering in mind. Probably for the best. I don’t think it’s appropriate to hate-bang the guy you tried to kill. At least not on the first night.
Pestilence tosses the clothes onto the couch, keeping an eye on me as he does so. He removes his armor piece by piece. Beneath it, the last remnants of the shirt he once wore now disintegrate, revealing his naked torso.
Even injured, he’s a pinnacle of the male specimen. He has muscles for days, his arms both thick and cut, his pecs nicely rounded out, and his abs ridiculously defined.
The skin of his chest still looks raw and red in places. It must have been terribly painful riding through the freezing day in nothing but a blanket while his armor scraped against his burned flesh.
It takes a second for my eyes to register that his wounds aren’t the only thing marring Pestilence’s skin. Ringing his chest like a collar are a series of strange letters that glow. A second set of them start at his hipbones, curving beneath the edge of the blanket; they glitter like amber in the dim light.