It seems as though it has been an eternity since I last put pen to paper. In my dreams I stayed home. I took over my father's ranch, found a partner and raised children. I can see hazy, half-formed images of their faces. One was freckled, the other had a loud and boisterous laugh. The years pass, and so do they. The children drift off to form their own families, occassionally visiting with little ones of their own. Soon the yard is full of children playing games, limited only by their robust imaginations.
The happiness is shortlived, however. A sickness comes and soon I stand alone among a field of gravestones.
I woke up with the crusted residue of shed tears on my face. I can still feel the weight of time on my shoulders.
When I awoke, the sun was barely above the horizon. It is still a cold sphere that cultivates the general aura of desolation prevalent throughout the landscape. There is a low fog hanging around the river beds. It carries a strange near-life; out of the corner of my eye it almost pulses like a heartbeat. The sunlight seems to drive it back to the bottomless depths.
The desolation seemed to have affected my traveling companions as well. They packed up the camp without any words, heads bowed low and shoulders hunched. I feared the answer before I ever asked the question.
"Where's Anthony?"
"Forget about him," Sam cautioned me, while at the same time the caravaner jerked a thumb to the house where the young man had chosen to spend the night.
"'E's in there."
I started walking toward the house and was quickly intercepted by Sam. "You don't want to see it, kid."
The caravaner gave a harsh bark of laughter. "Let him. He ought to understand what the Tall Man will do to trespassers."
I stepped around Sam and she grabbed my arm. "You don't want to see what's in there."
"No," I agreed. "I don't. But I think he's right. I think I need to understand. If I don't, how will I know what to be afraid of?"
Sam let me go, worry etching deep lines in her brown. I took a deep, fortifying breath, and started walking toward the house where Anthony slept.
Daylight gave the house a more ominous tone. What was once warm and forgiving the night before could easily be seen as a gilded deathtrap. A harsh, remorseless aura pressed down on me with every step. Perhaps most unsettling about the exterior was that the porch steps did not creak under my weight. The complete absence of sound proved more oppressing than any sighs or groans could.
The door swung open weightlessly with a single touch. It bounced lightly against something, then swung back, coming to rest partially open. That brief glimpse into the room beyond was enough to understand why Sam did not want me to see the aftermath.
The walls were painted in red pinstripes where bloody wires and circuits had been tossed and left to follow gravity's slow progression. Small bits of unidentifiable tissue lay scattered here and there throughout the room, but the majority of his body had been stacked neatly by the fireplace. The only thing that seemed to be missing was the head.
I remembered how the door had seemed to meet resistance before it should have made contact with the wall. I feared the answer before I asked the question...
I peered around the door. There, in the furthest corner, was a head full of sandy blonde hair. As I watched, it rustled, then began to turn. I stumbled away from the door, trying unsuccessfully to perform some combination of retching and shouting as the contents of my stomach finally rebelled against the gory sights. Sam's eyes grew wide as I fell to my knees beside her, and she pulled her gun from her holster. The gunshots made my ears ring, drowning out the sound of my vomiting.
I heaved until there was nothing more left to give and my vision was turning gray from the effort. When I finally looked up, it was straight into the caravaner's smug gaze.
"And good riddance, I say. Anyone who gives in to these monsters is nothing better than trash." He pulled a small green can out of his shirt pocket, only to have it plucked out of his grasp by Sam. Without a word, she turned and hurled it into the distance. The caravaner, initially stunned by her brazen move, was goaded into action a the soft 'plonk' indicated his precious tobacco had landed in a bottomless stream. He snarled at Sam, who met his eyes with a cold stare. Whatever he found there evidently wasn't worth the fight.
The caravaner spit, a thick glob of tar landing directly on Sam's boot. "Unload your stuff. You're walking."
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