Loathsome
He awoke in darkness with a mouthful of earth.
Soil pressed against his eyelids and filled his nostrils. When he tried to lift his head, it moved barely an inch before striking something hard.
Wood.
A box.
The understanding came slowly.
He had been buried.
Panic seized him. He clawed at the lid until the rotted boards split beneath his fingers. Cold soil poured over his face. He dug upward, dragging the loosened earth beneath his chest and kicking against the shattered coffin.
His nails peeled back. Stones opened his hands. He waited for the pain.
None came.
At last, his fingers broke through wet grass.
He pulled himself from the ground and lay beneath the stars, his mouth hanging open. For several moments, he forgot to breathe.
Around him, the hillside shifted.
A hand thrust from a neighboring grave. Farther down the slope, a woman dragged herself free, her head hanging at an awkward angle. An old man stood beside a leaning stone, patiently drawing a length of root from his mouth.
More earth stirred beneath the hill.
He paid it little attention.
Below them, warm lights glowed in the windows of a small town. Smoke curled from its chimneys. Somewhere, a dog barked.
He knew that place.
He started walking.
His left foot dragged behind him. When he looked down, he saw that his boot had split along the side. Something pale showed through the leather.
He would need another pair.
By the time he reached the first houses, a hollow feeling had opened inside him. He could not remember when he had last eaten.
He could not remember much of anything.
A young woman stood beside a gate with a basket resting against her hip. She hummed as she worked, unaware of him until his shadow reached her feet.
He meant to ask for help.
She turned.
Her eyes moved over his dirt-caked face, then down to his ruined hands.
The basket fell.
Apples rolled between them.
She screamed.
He reached for her.
She struck him across the cheek. He scarcely felt it. Her second blow caught his mouth, knocking something loose against his tongue.
Why was she fighting him?
He only needed—
Her wrist was warm in his hand.
So warm.
He pulled her close.
She screamed again as his teeth sank into her shoulder.
Her blood filled his mouth.
A woman’s voice whispered through him, green as grave-light and soft as a mother soothing her child.
“Feed.”
Amoly.
He knew her name, though he could not remember ever hearing it.
The young woman fought beneath him. Her heels scraped the road. He held her more tightly, afraid she might take the warmth away.
When she stopped moving, the hollow inside him quieted.
A little.
He let her fall beside the scattered apples.
Farther along the street, two boys rolled a wooden hoop between them. One guided it with a crooked stick while the other ran beside him, laughing.
The sound stirred something within him.
Summer sunlight.
Fresh-cut timber.
His own hands bending a narrow strip of wood while a child watched impatiently beside him.
He knew that hoop.
One of the boys looked up.
The stick slipped from his hand.
For a moment, they stared at one another.
The dead man almost remembered his name.
Then the boy screamed.
Both children ran toward a lighted doorway, crying for their parents. A man rushed outside and gathered them behind him. A woman pulled the younger boy against her skirts.
The man looked across the road.
Recognition slowly overcame his terror.
“Edrin?”
The name opened something inside the dead man.
A workshop filled with morning light. The smell of pine. A neighbor laughing as he leaned over a half-built table.
A funeral bell.
Darkness.
The memories vanished as quickly as they had come.
Behind him, footsteps dragged into town.
Dozens of them.
Edrin reached toward the family.
The father shoved the children inside and slammed the door.
Edrin laid his ruined hand against the wood. From within came muffled sobs, hushed prayers, and three hearts beating fast enough to hear.
The hollow opened again.
“Feed,” he rasped.
This time, the voice was his own.
