Pestilence by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 14

“Try it.”

“Absolutely not.”

“C’mon, trrrrry it,” I insist.

“I said no.”

As far as mornings post-Pestilence are concerned, this one is off to a great start. The sun is painting the world around us in soft pink light (so pretty), my hands are mercifully unbound for once, and nestled within them is a thermos containing my own version of deliverance.

I nudge Pestilence where he sits behind me with my elbow. “You know you’re curious.”

“I think I would know better than you what I know.”

Someone takes everything way too literally.

I press the thermos closer to the horseman, not dissuaded in the least by his protests. I mean, it’s hot chocolate I’m offering. Also, I really want to see if this guy is capable of drinking fluids. I haven’t seen him touch food or drink so far.

Pestilence’s hand digs into my hip, where he holds me against him in the saddle. “If I try it, will you quiet?”

“No, but you know you don’t really want me to be silent.”

My words are punctuated by the steady clop clop of Pestilence’s horse, who I’ve secretly named Trixie Skillz. I’m pretty sure the steed is a male (haven’t checked because unlike some people I know, respecting one’s privacy is important), but no matter.

I have his whole story figured out too. Trixie Skillz, the noble steed, once lived a life of poverty and fear, turning tricks on the streets for carrots and grain when Pestilence saved him. Now the two are inseparable. The End.

Pestilence takes the thermos from me, lifting the container to better scrutinize it. “If this is poison, human, I will tie you to the back of the horse again and make you run.”

I snort. “Pestilence, if it were poison, I’d have bigger problems than getting another asphalt massage.” Problems like keeling over and dying.

He scowls at me, then scowls at the thermos. “I don’t know why I’m encouraging this … pestering.”

Because you like it, I want to say, but I don’t. I really am pretty sure that a part of Pestilence—perhaps an itsy bitsy part of him, but a part of him nonetheless—is starting to enjoy my company, pestering and all.

Alright, perhaps tolerate is a better word. We’re tolerating each other despite openly hating each other’s guts. It’s an odd relationship, but since he refuses to die and he won’t kill me, we’re stuck with each other.

After eyeing the ever-loving shit out of the thermos, Pestilence brings it close to his lips.

Holy crap, he’s going to do it! He’s finally going to drink something!

The horseman hesitates, then holds the thermos out at his side and overturns it, dumping its contents out.

For a second I stare dumbly at the small brown stream petering out of the mouthpiece, then I jump into action.

“You heathen!” I snatch the thermos from him. “You could’ve just said no.”

“I did.”

“Well, you could’ve meant it.”

“I did.”

I check the warm canteen. There’s still a decent amount of hot chocolate left.

Nice.

Pestilence’s hand settles back at my side as I resume drinking the warm beverage.

“Why don’t you eat or drink?” I eventually ask.

“Because I don’t have to,” he answers curtly.

“So?”

“So?” he echoes, sounding affronted. He peers down at me, maybe to make sure I’m serious. “I’m confused. Why should I eat or drink if I don’t need to?”

“Because it’s fun and it tastes good—well, except for my Aunt Milly’s fruitcake. That shit tastes like a dirty asshole. But yeah, food tastes good, as does the hot chocolate you squandered a minute ago.”

“Tell me,” he says, “if I indulge like a human, how am I better than one?”

Oh geez. “Can we not make everything into some lofty battle between good and evil? It’s just food.”

He doesn’t respond for so long I think he isn’t going to, but then he finally says, “I will think over what you’ve told me.”

After that, the two of us are quiet.

Hate the silence.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually comfortable being alone in my own mind. There are always things like philosophy and literature, history and politics to think about. And when those lofty subjects get dull, there’s the normal slew of noise to fill my head, like remembering to do my taxes on time, or figuring out how to, logistically, host a family get together in my matchbox apartment, or mulling over what used books I’m going to blow my paycheck on.

But right now my mind isn’t that old, reliable friend it once was. Every time the silence roars in, my mind drifts to that plague victim I tended to, or the fact that more are dying with every kilometer we travel. Worst of all is when I ruminate on the man at my back. I’m still his prisoner, but the longer I’m around him, the more muddled my feelings are.

I press my hand against his horse’s neck. “‘Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before …’” I murmur to myself.

“What are you speaking of?” Pestilence asks.

“I’m quoting ‘The Raven.’ It’s a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.”

Pestilence makes a noise at the back of his throat. “I should’ve known that brief flash of eloquence was not your making.”

“Do you even have the ability to speak without insulting me?” I say.

I swear this bastard is just trying to kill my morning buzz.

“Of course.” I can hear the smug smile in his voice. “It is just that there are so very many things about you worth insulting.”

If this hot chocolate weren’t so precious to me, I’d dump the rest of it on Pestilence’s pig head, consequences be damned.

I think the horseman is waiting for me to clap back at him—to be perfectly honest, I think he enjoys verbally sparring with me—but he up and ruined Poe, so I’m not going to give him anything else.

When the silence stretches on, the horseman says softly, “I enjoyed that bit of poetry.”

I let out a huff.

Not going to take the bait, pretty boy. Not even when I really want to—because, Poe.

I begin stroking Trixie’s mane, the horse’s white hair silken beneath my fingertips.

“Tell me about yourself,” Pestilence demands.

I bristle at his tone. Said so high-handedly, like I’m here to serve him. Not to mention that the last few times I’ve tried to chat with him, he was rude.

“No.”

That response gives him pause. I can almost feel him studying the back of my head.

“You are such an odd creature,” he says. “One moment you tell me you won’t stop talking, and the next you refuse to.”

He’s so trying to bait me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the horseman was quickly developing an appetite for conversation.

He sighs. “Human, you’ve piqued my interest—a rare accomplishment. Don’t squander it.”

“Squander it?” This guy. “You mean by refusing to talk to you?” That’s real cute. “I’ll tell you a rare accomplishment—pissing me off.”

He guffaws. “You mean this hellcat nature of yours is atypical?”

Bringing out all my stabby tendencies.

“You want to know about me?” I practically shout. “Fine. My full name is not human, it’s Sara Burns. I’m twenty-one years old. And a week ago I was taken by an insufferable horseman. Would you like to argue about that too?”

I’m so ready to duke—it—out with Pestilence.

“Hmmm,” is all he says.

No scathing comments or smartass remarks. Just hmmm.

I could kill a bitch right now.

“What is it that you do to fill your days?” he asks.

I have to glance behind me to make sure I’m speaking to the same man who was taunting me literally seconds ago.

He stares at me, looking guileless.

I grimace. “Did,” I bite out. I don’t do anything at the moment, except (joyfully) slow the horseman down. (We all have to get our thrills somewhere.)

Facing forward, I add, “I was a firefighter.”

His fingers drum against my waist. “Did you enjoy it?”

I lift a shoulder. “It was just a job. It didn’t define me.” Not the way it did some of my teammates, who’d dreamed of being firefighters their entire lives. I blow out a breath. “I always wanted to go to college and study English,” I confess. I don’t know why I’m admitting this.

“English?” Pestilence says quizzically. “But you speak it fine—if a little odd.”

“Not English as in the language itself,” I clarify, tipping back the last of the hot chocolate. I slide the thermos into one of the saddle bags. “English as in literature written in English. I wanted to study the works of Shakespeare and Lord Byron and,”—my favorite—“Poe.”

“Poe,” the horseman repeats, no doubt remembering the name from earlier. “Why didn’t you study these poets?”

Regret is a bitter taste at the back of my throat, and there’s no more hot chocolate to wash it out.

“Four horsemen came to earth and made a mess of the world.”

When we enter the town of Squamish, it’s just as abandoned as I hoped it might be.

We pass by a gas station whose pumps are rusty with years of disuse, but whose store is filled with rows of preserved produce, nuts, and sweets.

Farther in, recently installed gas lamps still burn, though the sun has been up for hours. The lamp lighter must’ve evacuated before they could extinguish the light.

Like the gas station’s store, the trading posts we pass are still full of goods, a sure sign that their owners fled before they had a chance to stow away their goods. As a result, a few of them have been broken into and robbed.

Beneath my layers of clothing, my skin pricks. This all could’ve happened hours ago, and yet, there’s not a single soul to be seen. It’s vastly unnerving to pass through a town that by all rights should be full of people. It feels … haunted.

What must Quebec and Ontario and all the rest of the provinces to the east look like now that Pestilence has passed through them? What must the U.S.’s East Coast look like now?

Whether you make it out of this alive or not, the world is never going to be the same.

Pestilence turns off the main road and begins weaving through the town, and I have no idea what his game plan is. It’s too early to squat in some poor soul’s home, and so far, that’s the only time the horseman ever leaves the main highway.

It’s not until we approach Squamish’s hospital that I start feeling uneasy.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Your feeble body needs amenities.”

I stare at the hospital with quickly rising horror. Amenities like gauze.

We’d run out of the linen wrappings this morning.

“I don’t need any more bandages,” I rush to say.

“Yes, you do.” Gentler, Pestilence says. “Do you really think it takes me going to the hospital for them all to die? Come now, Sara, I merely need to walk through a city to see its doom.”

I glance back at him. I know I should be processing his words, but I’m hung up on the fact that he actually said my name.

He continues on, dauntless. “Whether or not I enter a hospital, matters not. The humans will still fall, there especially.”

It’s not like what he’s saying is news to me, it’s just that I don’t want to see the faces of those too sick and feeble to flee, as death incarnate walks amongst them.

There’s a chance the town went to special lengths to remove the hospital’s patients. It’s possible. But it’s also possible that the weakest individuals were simply unable to evacuate.

I grab the horseman’s forearm as a thought comes over me. “A general store,” I say, like I’ve discovered the cure for cancer. “They will have bandages at a general store.”

Pestilence stares down at where I grip his arm. “Did you see a general store on our way here?”

“I saw at least three of them.” These days there’s a trading post or general store on every street corner, each one existing because they have some edge on the market.

The horseman squints at me. “And you think I should go there instead?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then it is settled,” he says with finality.

Was … was convincing him really that easy?

For an instant I almost believe it. But then Trixie Skillz keeps clomping forward, and the hospital looms ever closer.

“What about the general store?” I look over my shoulder at Pestilence.

His face is grim as it meets mine. “I mean to make you suffer.”