Oct 17th, 2083: Making of a Bone Man

Sam knocked on my door not long after I finished the previous entry.  "Food's on." Breakfast was subdued, any conversation expressed in grunts or terse words.  Sam's hat did a poor job of hiding red-rimmed eyes.  Tears?  A sleepless night?  An allergy to the hay-stuffed mattresses?  I didn't ask.

Oar's face haunted me.  Anthony was nothing more than a pile of limbs, meat stacked in piles like haunches of livestock waiting to be cut into prime sections.  A boy when I went to sleep, dead meat when I woke up.  Oar, though...  I remember the wet sound of his head being crushed like an overripe fruit.  His body lying atop that hill.  I hear his voice like an echo reverberating around my head.  His screams.

"Good morning."  The familiar voice resonated in my bones and settled into the back of my skull.  I rose from my chair, turning to stare up into the simple mask of another Bone Man.  It nodded to us, perhaps the most human gesture any of the stern guardians had made since my arrival.  "I am Viceroy.  I will be your guide today."  In a higher register his bland statements might have seemed cordial, but if there was any type of inflection it was beyond my ability to perceive.

We left the small in and started to follow Viceroy into the center of town.  I glanced up at the cold white sun-face-and could not quite control the shiver that crawled down my spine.  Those long fingers like bleached bone curling around his skull.

"One thinks you would like to see how a Bone Man is made."  Viceroy informed us.  "There is an individual who has been selected for advancement."  The few people out at this early air moved out of Viceroy's path.

Our destination turned out to be a marketplace with stalls of hanging meat and boxes of wan vegetables.  All around us, vendors unpacked their wares.  Once they caught sight of us, they would freeze like startled deer.  When they caught my eye they would quickly resume their work, though now their movements were stilted and sharp.

Viceroy halted in front of a stall.  The vendor of this stall stood with her back to us, stretching up to hang a string of garlic.  She had light blonde hair pulled into a bun and wore a paisley dress colored with light greys and blues.  She turned and like all the other vendors, froze upon spotting us.  She wore a full-face mask, the eyes rimmed in navy blue that drifted off on one side to form intricate curliques all the way down her cheek to merge with the bow of her lips.  Wisps of light blonde hair curled around the side of her mask.  Our guide extended a hand to her, a mask resting on his long and narrow palm.

"No," the woman whimpered, backing away from us.  "Please, no, I have children.  Thomas isn't even weaned yet."  Viceroy had to bend low to fit under the roof of the stall.  He reached for her mask with his other hand, tearing it free.  She wailed, a high-pitched sound that tore at my eardrums.  In taking the mask off, the Bone Man had removed more than the mask, he had taken the skin from her face.  Muscles and tendons scrunched into a wail that was quickly cut off as Viceroy pushed the other mask onto her face.

A small thought budded in the recesses of my mind, growing into a sickening horror as I began to realize...  I saw Sam's eyes widen, presumably for the same reason.  Almost in unison, we reached up to the masks still on our faces.  The masks we had forgotten about; the ones that conformed so perfectly to our faces that we had lived in them for the past 24 hours.

We reached up in almost near perfect unison and began prying the mask off our faces.  It hurt.  It felt like I was tearing off a newly formed scab.  By the time I finally ripped myself free, I was panting from the effort.  Or from hysteria.  Sam's face was raw, abraded and bleeding in several places.  I felt a warm wet trickle begin to trace its way down my cheek.  I could see pieces of flesh from my face stuck in the domino.  A drop of blood hit the mask, trickling down into the valley of the nose before falling softly to the ground.

I looked around, wiping at my face with the back of my hand.  The world had stilled around us, the vendors and consumers silent witnesses to our frenetic actions.  I turned back to Viceroy and the woman.  Twin silent faces filled my vision, pale imitations of a white sun that was the face of a monster.  I scrambled backward, grabbing at Sam's arm and dragging her with me out of the suddenly overcrowded marketplace.  We stopped on the street corner where Sam watched as I tried to regain my composure.  Wind rushed harshly through my lungs, burning the passages of my throat.

"Kid..."  Sam pulled me into a rough hug, arms like a vice.  "In for three, out for three.  Just count.  Don't think about anything, just count."  I buried my forehead in the rough fabric of Sam's shirt and my whole world became three numbers and warmth of another human body.

"One wonders why you are currently experiencing a state of duress."

I pulled away from Sam.  Viceroy had caught up with us and stood far enough away that I did not have to strain my neck to see his plain mask.  The mask that was now his face.  In an instant, the panic and fear turned to anger.  "Duress?  Your King wonders why I am under duress?  Does he really not understand the fundamental concept of humanity, that we might actually be distressed if someone we knew were suddenly and violently killed?  Your King ripped apart a boy because he wandered into the wrong house!  He crushed a man who only wanted to share his beliefs!  He shatters a family because he wants another Bone Man, when there are enough of you to fill the clearing in the middle of that forsaken forest."  Propelled by the impetus of my emotional outburst, I threw my mask onto the ground and stepped on it, grinding my heel on it over and over until it lay in pieces on the street.

Viceroy was silent for a while, staring at the shattered mask before my feet.  Finally, it raised that blank face to me and when it spoke all traces of humanity, all imitations of human behavior were gone.  "The mechanical abomination was given sufficient warning and chose his fate.  The Michaelman infected several citizens before he was caught.  Many had to be put down to keep the poison from spreading.  Realize this, visitor.  You are all ants but those citizens were the One's ants, not the Angel's."

My thoughts went back to the woman in the ochre mask, the one who was escorted away by the Bone Men.  I replayed yesterday afternoon's events in my head, trying to count how many people had listened to him speak.  Had Oar Ellis been aware of the effect his words would have?  Was everyone who listened to him automatically given a sentence of death?  His message had seemed fairly innocuous so why had it driven that woman to such acts of self-violence?

Like a sudden blow knocking the wind from my lungs, I was frozen, waiting for my brain to catch up with the rest of the world.  Sam's vitrol made more sense, had she forseen something like this happening?  Was it only my naivety that kept me from predicting this would occur?  "I..."

"You are leaving tomorrow."  Viceroy did not ask, he stated.  "You may travel through the forest, if you can bear to travel a path you consider 'forsaken.'"

I nodded.  Viceroy turned and strode away, his long legs taking him out of sight in a matter of seconds.  I finally noticed the crowd that had gathered around us.  My face burned with embarassement; despite my short time with a mask, I felt unnervingly vulnerable without it.  I ducked my head and headed back to the hotel, Sam at my heels.

The trunks I had abandoned days before were waiting for me in my room, leaving barely enough space to open the door.  I stared at them as the rush of adrenaline finally left me.  "I'm just...  I need to rest for a bit."

Sam's expression bore something akin to pity.  She pushed her mask into my hands then gave my shoulder a brief squeeze.  "Don't break this one.  You'll probably want a souvenir or something."

By the time I made my way over and around all the luggage cluttering up my room, all of my energy was gone.  I pulled a pillow over my head in futile attempt to smother my thoughts, but only succeeded in breathing in must and the smell of moldy feathers.

I won't bore you with the hours of self-torment I forced upon myself while lying in that small, cold room.  Suffice it to say that eventually I realized this journey will not get easier.  No doubt I will see others die in cruel, terrible ways.  All I can do is record the mistakes made and hopefully keep others from making the same ones.

Oct 15, 2083: The Honeytrap

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."

Oct 14th, 2083: The Empty House

We ruined the first couple of hides, of course.  Then Anthony managed to connect to the mainframe long enough to download a video.  He talked us through the last couple of hides, and come the next couple of days we should have enough to make a purse or something.  Excuse me, a satchel.  I know Sam well enough to know that she will scoff at anything so frivolous as a purse.  Practicality, that is the word Sam lives by.  Hm...  Maybe I would be better served to use the fur to line our boots.  Though we are out of Jack Frost's territory, the chill can still be deadly to those who don't take proper precautions. 

We are following the Missouri down to the next major town, Sioux City.  In this land, the Tall Man is king.  The borders of his land are clearly delineated.  At first, the stagevan traveled easily over the remnants of the cracked asphalt highways.  Then it stuttered and started to drag.  Underneath the stagevan's wheels, the asphalt had become covered in a black grass.  The sun seemed dimmer, a cold white orb in the sky. 

We stopped for water and the driver insisted that we tie ourselves to the van before refreshing our thirst.  I refilled my canteen and saw that while the water was clear and cold, the river had no bottom.  I dropped a blade of grass in the water, and rather than floating along on the current, it slowly drifted downward into the abyss.

As we traveled, we saw areas of forest and grassland that were taken over by black vegetation.  I watched a deer, startled by our approach, run into one of the patches, then disappear from my sight.  No trees for it to hide behind, only grass that immediately stilled as if it had never been there at all.

The entire day I felt as if sandpaper were being rubbed on all my nerves.  It seemed the entire party felt the same way, everyone was irritable and short-tempered.

We stopped for camp at dusk in an abandoned town.  All the buildings but one were crumbling, victims to the ravages of nature and time.  The sole exception was a lone house right at the edge of town.  While not as pristine as it might have been before the Sickness, it was the only one that seemed to have four sturdy walls and an intact roof.

It didn't take a genius to sense that something was wrong about that house.  I did not argue when the driver told us to set up camp in a building with no roof.  Anthony, however, took exception. 

"Why not that one?"  He argued, while I lit the fire.  Sam rolled her eyes and shook her head, then slipped out to hunt for our dinner. 

The stagevan driver tucked a wad of some black stuff in his lip. "It's a trap, kid.  Plain as day."  As he spoke, a flash of lightening ripped across the sky.  Oar and I worked together to brace a tarp over the fire so the approaching rain wouldn't extinguish it.  The heat from it was outstanding, it seemed to singe my flesh while I was still several feet away.  I had no doubt the small fire would be adequate to heat our roofless room.

Anthony and the driver exchanged more heated words, then the boy stormed off as large drops of rain began to patter.  His bedroll thrown over his shoulder, he disappeared through the door of the one intact house.

Our stagedriver spit a wad of noxious black liquid into the dark.  "Stupid."

I volunteered for first watch and during the darkening twilight hours my eyes stayed on the house where Anthony slept.  He had not yet appeared by the time I woke Oar for his shift.  I hope that no harm befalls him during the rest of night.

Oct 13th, 2083: The Michaelman and The Rabbits

Mr. Ellis, or Oar as he would have me call him, was born by the ocean.  He is one of the first generation born after the great sickness and has seen first-hand the evolution of the holy archangel Michael. As he told me his story, he smoked a pipe carved from mahogany and brushed the ashes off his suit. 

"My first memory is of a brilliant white light.  It was His light, telling me that I was going to serve Him for the rest of my days.  As I grew older, I gathered my flock from other lost children in the area.  We grew larger and started a society of virtue and peace.  Once my flock was well-established, He talked to me again.  He told me to spread His word as far and wide as I could.  I gave all my worldly goods to my sons and daughters and headed east with nothing but the Scriptures in my hand."

"Fascinating.  May I see your scriptures?"  He handed me the book, a thick journal bound in soft black leather.  Inside, each and every page was filled to the brim with tiny cramped handwriting.  I opened a page at random and tried to read by the dim firelight. 

"He is most sacred to all.  Hold His life above your own, His truths are more valuable than yours, He is all that is right and just in this world."

I flipped to other pages in the book, but the content remained much the same.  "What exactly are His truths?"

"Listen to your heart, son.  He speaks them to you if only you take the time to listen."

Anthony interrupted to take a look at my broken toes.  He had some less-than polite things to say about the doctor who saw to me in Miles City.  Apparently the toes haven't been set right and I can look forward to walking with a limp the rest of my life.  Sam returned with a brace of rabbits slung over her shoulder, and since I am apparently the only one who can cook without turning the meat into charcoal, I have been nominated the stagevan chef.

Anthony helped me rise to my feet and handed my crutches to me.  I stumbled and had to grab his shoulder for balance.  We laughed and I headed to my luggage for my spices.

"Careful with the Michaelman, Sen."  Sam knelt on the side of the stagevan, opposite the fire.  She spoke in low tones and didn't look up at me, focusing on skinning the rabbit in her hands.  "There's certain lines there you just don't cross with them."

"What?"

A huff of impatience, and the stem of sagebrush in her mouth was spit onto the ground.  "Sen Stu Sha, you know full well what I'm talking about.  That kid, Anthony.  I'm warning you now not to let the Michaelman see you together."

I pulled the suitcase to the ground next to her, the better to participate in this hushed conversation.  "First off, I don't know what you're talking about.  Anthony is nothing to me.  Second of all, what business is it of his?"

She wrapped the viscera in the rabbit's pelt and set it aside, handing me the bloody meat.  "Michaelmen think everything is their business.  And they're not afraid to tell you so with more than words."  Another carcass was laid over my arm.  Thank goodness I'd chosen to wear a dark colored shirt today.  "I've seen the scars Michaelmen leave behind if they don't like what you're doing.  Taking a hand for theft.  Plucking out the eyes of wandering husbands."  She wiped her knife on the grass before sticking it back down in her boot.  "Love the wrong person and you get burnt.  Literally.  Acid.  Fire.  The Michaelmen have everyone under their thumb out West."  She stood, gathering the gruesome blood-dripping pelts in her arms.

"Wait."  I jerked my head to the campfire, where Oar and Anthony sat talking with the stagevan driver.  "I can cook up some of those and burn the rest.  We can save the hides for something." 

Sam smirked, but helped me to my feet and handed me the spices from my suitcase.  "Do you even know how to tan hides, Sen?" 

"No, but I believe I have a book with instructions for it somewhere."

"Figures," Sam laughed, shaking her head.  "Why?"

"I want to see if I can, that's all."

Oct 13th, 2083: The next leg of my journey: following the Missouri River

Charlie referred this stagevan company to us.  He says they've got a good safety record, which means I'll be sleeping easy at night.  He waited at the station while we loaded up the vehicle, then hugged Sam tightly in farewell.  I felt it necessary to look away before I embarassed us all by witnessing the emotional exchange.

There are two other passengers traveling with us, Oar Ellis and Anthony Morales.  Mr. Ellis is a Michaelman, a man who willingly serves one of the New Gods.  (Sam clearly does not trust Mr. Ellis.  She has not said more than three words to him and spits the word Michaelman as if it is a curse.)  Anthony is a young man of approximately fifteen years of age.  He is traveling south to one of the larger cities where he hopes to find a doctor to study the art of medicine.  They have both agreed to be interviewed for my journal. 

Anthony is a native of Bismarck.  I asked him why he didn't speak in the same screeching tones as our old guide.  He pulled his shirt sleeve up and showed me the cables that danced around his wrist in place of tendons.  "I've been upgraded by the Gear Baby, same as her.  It let me keep my head, provided I go out and learn how to fix the flesh side of things."

When asked why, he shrugged.  "Every one of the Gear Baby's towns has got to have a doctor.  I was picked to be Doc Hannigan's replacement when I was five.  But I needed more book learning so I'm headed to one of the big cities for a couple of years.  When Doc Hannigan's dead, the Gear Baby will let me know and I'll head back home with whatever I've managed to learn." 

"Why a doctor?"  This from Sam.  "Why not just keep replacing the body with scavenged metal and concrete?"  Though she was scornful, there seemed to be honest curiosity behind her question.

"I.. I don't know.  Hold on a sec and let me ask."  Anthony closed his eyes for a moment, his lips moving.  When he opened them, his face was blank and it took him a moment to focus on us.  "CURRENT PROJECTIONS INDICATE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS EXHAUSTED IN FIFTEEN YEARS.  BY ADDING ONE DOCTOR TO EACH TOWN TO CONDUCT MINOR BIOLOGICAL REPAIRS CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS CAN BE EXTENDED UP TO SIXTY-FIVE YEARS."  It was Anthony's voice, but in a mechanical monotone.  Everyone edged back from the boy who blinked.  "Did that answer your question?"  Back to his normal voice.

"Er, yes."  Sam shifted further away from Anthony, pulling her heavy canvas coat tighter around her. 

Anthony smiled.  "Don't worry, ma'am.  It gets a lot harder to talk to the mainframe the further I get from the cities.  Those wires," he pointed out the window to cables that could be seen in the distance.  "The Gear Baby's gotten to some of them, but not all."

This was my chance!  I leaned forward in my seat, pencil at the ready.  "Can I ask the mainframe some questions, Anthony?"  Sam's head whipped around and she stared at me incredulously.  "I'm not just describing what the world is like now," I explained while Anthony's face once again went blank.  "I need to tell people how it came to be that way." 

"I too am interested in pursuing this line of inquiry."  Mr. Ellis added.  Sam shrugged, leaning back in her seat and turning her attention out the window.

"AWAITING REQUEST." 

"Oh, um."  I thought back to the video the guide had shown us.  "Well...  Where did the Gear Baby come from?"

"THOUGHTS.  DREAMS.  MEMORIES.  ALTERNATELY A POCKETWATCH OWNED BY A MAN WHILE HE WAS IN NEW JERSEY."

"What's New Jersey?"

"A GEOGRAPHICAL AREA IN A NATION THAT ONCE WAS BUT IS NO LONGER."

"Well that was helpful."

"YOU'RE WELCOME."

"No, I mean-  Never mind.  What exactly is a mainframe?"

"MAINFRAME: NOUN.  DEFINITION: A LARGE COMPUTER, OFTEN THE HUB OF A SYSTEM SERVING MANY USERS."

"What's a computer?  Or a hub?  Is it like the hub of a wheel?"

There was silence.  Anthony rolled his unfocused eyes.  "PLEASE NARROW SEARCH TERM PARAMETERS."

"What are paramete-"  My question cut off in a grunt of pain as Sam elbowed me in the side.  "All right.  Well, what do you do?"

"I SERVE MANY USERS.  MY PRIMARY FUNCTIONS ARE SCHEDULING TASKS, TRANSMITTING COMMUNICATION FROM THE ONE TRUE MAINFRAME AND MANAGING SEEPEEYU USAGE."

I didn't ask what seepeeyu was, I didn't want to feel Sam's sharp elbow in my ribs again.  "Who is the 'One True Mainframe'?"

"THE ONE TRUE MAINFRAME IS THE ONE DESIGNATED 'GEAR BABY'.  IT -kkkkssss- THE -skkkt- TO -ssksksksks- ANTssskkkPATE TERRITppsskssssEA WILL kkkkkssssBLE IN sssksksTEEN YEAssskkkk..."

Anthony's voice was cut off suddenly, and he slumped forward like a dead weight.  Mr. Ellis was fast enough to catch him before he hit his head on the seat in front of him.  The young man was deathly pale, he had sacrificed his own health to allow me to talk with this mainframe person.  At the very least, I must pay for his meals while he travels with us.  Mr. Ellis laid the boy down on the rearmost bench of the stagevan and covered him with his black leather jacket.

I decided to wait until we stopped for the night before interviewing Mr. Ellis.  He nodded and to be honest, looked a little relieved.  His tension didn't ease any when I told him that Anthony was the first to faint after one of my interviews.  Instead, I was treated to Sam's elbow digging into my ribs-on the same spot as before, no less.  I will surely have a bruise in the morning.