Famine by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 4

I have this recurring dream of Famine walking through a field of sugarcane. His hand reaches idly out, his fingertips brushing the stalks. Beneath his touch the plants curl and blacken, the decay spreading out around him until the entire field has withered away.

It’s eerily silent. I can’t even hear the wind whistling through those dying stalks, though they sway in some phantom breeze.

I’m back there now, standing like a sentinel as the Reaper moves through the field, killing that crop. There’s another, darker figure that looms somewhere behind me, but I don’t pay him any attention.

As I watch, Famine moves farther from me, and as he does so, the silence seems to close in on me, until it’s a deafening ring in my ears.

From behind me, a strong hand grips my shoulder, squeezing tightly.

Lips press against my ear.

“Live,” the voice breathes.

That’s what wakes me.

My eyes flutter open. I squint against the heavy, oppressive shine of the sun, the pungent smell of decay thick in my nostrils.

Hazy with pain and weakness, I draw in one shaky breath, then another.

I shift a little. At the movement, sharp, blinding pain rips across my torso.

Fucking ow.

I go still, waiting for the pain to abate. It does … somewhat, dulling to a steady throb. I take a shallow breath, inhaling bits of dirt as I do so.

I cough, and Satan’s balls, it feels like I’ve crossed through the gates of hell. The pain reignites.

Hurts so damn bad.

Dirt shifts over my body, skittering off me as I push myself up. My arm brushes something soft, something that isn’t dirt. Then it’s my leg that touches that same object.

My teeth grind against the pain as I force myself to sit up. I cry out at the action, my body hurting in a dozen different places.

Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.

When the pain and nausea pass, I look around me. Vaguely, it registers that I’m sitting in that unfinished pool, and that someone has thrown mounds and mounds of dirt back into the craterous pit. But that’s not what’s truly snagging my attention.

Little more than a meter away, I see a face peering up through the soil like some newly sprouted plant, its mouth slightly agape, dirt lightly sprinkled across its open eyes, which stare blankly into the distance.

A sound slips out of me as my gaze darts over the rest of my surroundings. To my left I see a leg and part of someone’s torso sticking out from the dirt, to my right I see a shoulder and the arm of yet another body.

My hand braces itself against something lumpy and vaguely hard. I glance down only to realize this whole time I’ve been pushing against the face of the mayor’s wife, two of my fingers are brushing against her teeth.

My scream comes out as a choked cry.

Dear God.

I snatch my hand away, causing a dozen flies to take flight before resettling.

The woman’s daughters are laying nearby. All of them then haphazardly covered with dirt.

Buried in a shallow grave. Left to die.

And me along with them.

Elvita.

My eyes dart around, searching frantically for the woman who took me in five years ago.

I don’t see her, but the longer I stare about, the more I realize that the pit is moving. There are others who survived the rampage, others like me who have been buried alive.

And now that I’m actually paying attention, I can hear their soft, dying groans. Those of us still living might not be for long. My mind rallies against that thought.

I want to live.

I will live.

And then I will get my revenge.

I can’t say how many minutes it takes to force myself to my feet. The whole time I’m sure that one of Famine’s men is going to come out here and check on us to make sure the dead stay dead. That all my effort will come to a swift, sharp end. But no one comes.

I dust the dirt off my body. It’s everywhere—in my hair, down my shirt, coating my clothes, between my toes and inside my mouth. I’m too cowardly to look at the wounds on my chest, but I bet if I did, I’d see dirt in them as well.

Pushing myself up, my gaze sweeps over the pit. The sides of it are too steep to simply walk out of, but thankfully one part of the pool is shallower than the other, and in this shallow area someone thought to create steps leading out.

But in order to get over to those steps, I have to walk over the partially buried bodies.

Pinching my eyes shut, I draw in a deep breath, release it, then start to move.

Instantly, the pain sharpens, stealing my breath and making my movement almost unbearably agonizing.

I take one shaky step, then two, then three.

Just a little farther.

My foot slips on a bloody arm, and I fall. I hit the ground.

Blinding pain—

I think I pass out because I’m suddenly blinking my eyes open even though I don’t remember closing them.

Once again I’m lying on a dirt-covered corpse, my cheek nestled against something wet and sticky. The pain, the horror—all of it has my nausea rising. I barely have time to turn my head to the side before I retch.

My entire body is shaking, both from exertion, and from my terrible reality.

I let myself lay there for a moment, my face crumpling as I begin to sob. I don’t think I can do it. I want to live, but this is all too much.

Those awful flies land on me and that is what causes me to snap.

I will not be food for some fucking flies. I won’t.

I force down the last of my nausea and, gritting my teeth against the pain, force myself up once more.

Again, I begin walking towards those steps. And this time, I don’t fall. I make it up the steps and out of that deadly pool.

A relieved cry slips out once my feet touch solid ground. But it only lasts a few seconds. I can still hear the faint moans of the still living.

I glance back at the pool looking for anyone still alive.

Maybe Elvita survived. It’s possible.

I stare out at the sea of partially covered bodies. I don’t see the madam, but I do see the mayor, though he’s almost unrecognizable, his face drenched in blood. He’s one of the ones still clinging to life.

I wrap a hand around my stomach to stave off as much of the pain as I can, and then I begin to stumble over the edge of the pool nearest him.

He was an inconsiderate lover and a terrible tipper, but he didn’t deserve to die like this—and his wife and children certainly didn’t as well.

When I get close, I crouch next to the edge of the pool and reach down. I don’t know how I’m going to get an injured adult male out of this pit, but I can’t not help him.

He shakes his head, seeming to choke on air. Only now do I notice the tear tracks that snake down his cheeks.

“Take my hand,” I insist, pleading with him.

He doesn’t.

His dark eyes find mine. “Kill … me …” His voice is barely a whisper.

I give him a distraught look. “What?”

“Please …” he wheezes.

I rear back, horrified. My wild eyes look everywhere but him, and that’s when I see the back of Elvita’s blood-drenched body.

A sound slips from my lips. For a moment, the mayor’s plea is forgotten. I rise to my feet, then stumble over to the edge of the pool nearest her, my vision darkening from the pain. I don’t bother to muffle my cries, even though a small part of me worries that it will draw the attention of Famine’s men.

I fall to my knees and frantically reach for her. She’s close enough for me to touch, but the moment my fingers brush her, I know she’s gone. Her skin feels nothing like living flesh.

A sob slips from my lips.

Elvita is gone.

Truth be told, I have—I mean, I had—a complicated relationship with this woman, one that was equal parts resentment and gratitude. I know she used me—exploited me even—but she was also a friend and confidante, and she protected me from the worst of our world. This plan of hers—to throw one of her girls at the horseman—wasn’t supposed to end like this.

Over the last five years, my old anger towards Famine stayed with me like a scab, and now it’s as though he picked it open.

He took everything from me twice.

It’s time he pays.

Once I’ve gathered myself, I stand, moving away from the pool and the flies that circle it.

All this time I’ve been too distracted to notice that neither Famine nor any of his men have approached this backyard. And for that matter, the pit is filled in. Their business here must be done.

I stumble towards the front of the house, grinding my teeth at the impossible pain.

I shouldn’t be alive, and how badly I’m regretting that fact right now, when my body feels flayed wide open.

I round to the front of the house. The front door hangs open. The place looks abandoned.

How long was I lying inside that pit?

I stagger home, taking in shallow, ragged breaths. I have to pause numerous times to catch my breath when my vision clouds or the pain and exhaustion become too unbearable. I gasp out hushed cries.

As I walk, I skirt around large plants that have broken through the asphalt road. Perhaps if I’d been less focused on making it through each step I would have noticed how quiet my surroundings had become. Quiet and empty. I would’ve noticed the putrid smell stinging my nose and the road’s altered appearance.

I’m more than halfway home when I finally notice the drone of buzzing flies, a sound that’s accompanied me for most of the walk. Even then, I don’t process the noise until I lean against one of those trees growing in the middle of the street—a tree, now that I think about it, that wasn’t there the last time I used this road …

The buzzing is nearly deafening, and that’s when I finally realize something’s not right.

I glance above me, towards the sound, and I swallow a scream. Dangling from the boughs of an enormous paraná pine tree is a twisted body, the feet bare and discolored. As I watch, the corpse gently sways in the breeze. A swarm of flies circles what I think used to be an old man, flying and landing and flying and landing round and round the corpse.

As my eyes move over the canopy of leaves, I notice another body, this one a young woman. Her limbs are tangled up in the branches, her eyes bulging.

I’ve seen this before—Lord help me but I have.

I’ve seen trees like this one grow spontaneously from the ground, and I can easily imagine how it plucked men and women off the street and squeezed the life out of them like an anaconda squeezes prey.

Not that it makes it any easier to process.

I lean over once again and heave. But there’s nothing left in my stomach to expel.

I think of how all us townspeople lined the road, waiting for the Reaper, our arms full of gifts meant to placate him. Then I remember his face when he ordered my death. All because I caught his attention.

This is how our fear and generosity are treated.

A flash of anger eclipses my pain and horror for a moment.

None of us deserved this. Well, maybe one or two of my shittier clients deserved this, but not everyone else.

I push away from the tree and continue on. Now I really notice the trees and brambly shrubs that have broken through the cracked streets of Laguna. In each one, bodies are held captive, their forms contorted.

No one besides me walks down the street. All the people are gone and the flies have moved in—them and the semi-feral dogs who tug at some of the more accessible bodies.

I eye the plants around me like at any moment they might scoop me up and crush me. So far, they haven’t, and I’m really fucking hoping my luck holds out.

By the time I get to The Painted Angel, nestled between a tavern and a gambling hall, I’m still alive. Alive and alone. I haven’t seen another living soul.

I pass under the wooden sign depicting a naked angel whose wings barely cover her tits and pussy, and I slip inside the only home I’ve known for half a decade. The door slams shut behind me, the sound echoing throughout the space.

I come to a standstill inside the main parlor.

Normally at this time of day, the girls are lounging about on the jewel-toned couches that fill the space. Sometimes there’s a midday caller, but usually this is the time when—if we’re not sleeping off the night’s work—we’re sprawled across these couches, coffee or tea in hand, playing Truco or gossiping or singing or doing each other’s hair—or a million other things.

Today, the bordello is as still as the grave. And for good reason. Three giant, thorny bushes grow in the middle of the room, and caught in their clutches are—

Luciana, Bianca, and Cláudia.

All of them had decided to stay behind, unwilling to leave this life they’d built for themselves. But now they’re gone anyway, and all their hopes and dreams are gone with them.

My throat is working. I’m trying desperately to not fall apart. I just hope to God that the women who fled before the horseman’s arrival are still alive and safe.

I shuffle past the bodies of my former housemates.

“Hello?” I call out, but I already know no one is left. Famine doesn’t leave anyone alive.

I drag myself towards the kitchen. All I want to do is sleep, but my lips are cracked and my throat is scratchy from dehydration. Rummaging around, I find a few pieces of fruit that are past their prime, some stale bread, and a hard rind of cheese. That’s all that remains of the normally well-stocked kitchen. The icebox hangs open, its shelves bare, and the pantry, with its links of hanging sausages and bags of grain, has been cleaned out.

I grab a partially empty pitcher of water that sits on the countertop, and bring it directly to my lips, draining it dry. I tear into the bread, only pausing to take large bites from the cheese and the shriveled fruit.

I feel nauseous again, like maybe my stomach isn’t really fit to hold food. That thought nearly has me retching up my meal.

God, I really hope this isn’t going to be some long, lingering death that takes a fucking month.

I almost lay back down on one of those couches, my body is that ready to give out. But I can’t bear the sight of any more dead, so I stumble up the stairs and to my room, and thankfully, I see no more unnatural plants.

I fall into bed, dirt and blood getting all over my sheets. Elvita isn’t alive to yell at me, and frankly, if there still is anyone left to yell at me, I gladly welcome it.

Because I’m pretty sure that I’m well and truly alone.