The Beautiful Dead by Daryl Banner Read Free Book Online

sink, his head
knocking into a pipe, his thick arm wedging itself deeper inside. “Please, please,
please. Don’t let them eat me. Please.”
    “Ugh, quit
begging,” I tell him, annoyed. “Just stay down there, drummer. We have
unfinished business.”
    Circumventing
the counter and daintily stepping over the skeleton bones and death—like I do
this every day—I head for the tavern door, twist the lock and swing it open.
    A fat and
panicked face meets mine.
    “You’re
alive!” the fat man shouts.
    “Well not
exactly,” I say, confused. “Is there something I can help—?”
    He pushes past
me, anxiously stepping into the tavern—I can’t stop him. His eyes take in the
scene of scattered bodies and bones with horror. He covers his mouth as if to
keep flies out.
    “Who are you?”
I ask.
    Then, as
quickly as the look of horror had come, it’s gone. “How rude of me not to
introduce mine-self! I am Mayor of Trenton. At times I’m not a very good one,
admittedly so.” His voices shakes, the only hint that his merry demeanor is put
on. “You don’t have to worry a bit. You’re still alive!”
    “Again, I’m
not. What happened here? Is this normal for an Undead bar fight?”
    He watches my
face for a long, intrigued moment before finally letting a chuckle wiggle its
way out of his belly. “Bar fight, you say? Hah! Yes, of course … A bar fight.
It was that and nothing more.”
    Then his eyes
are met by the sight of one particular set of bones—one with the flesh still
somewhat there—and his cheer vanishes at once. “Oh, my spirits.” Pained
suddenly, he lowers to one knee. “I knew you,” he whispers to the set of bones.
“You who played your lute, midnights at the fountain. I’ve known you mine-self
since my own Raising long, long ago. You, lady of the song.”
    Mine-self.
Curious word. I look down at what remains of the body, surprised he can
recognize anything at all. “Can’t she just be ... fixed up? At the Refinery?”
    “No,” the
Mayor whispers in a daze, as though he weren’t addressing me at all. “No, she
cannot.”
    “What do you
mean? I thought ... I thought we couldn’t—”
    “No, of course
not!” he agrees, snapping out of it. “We cannot die! We’re perfectly fine, the
lot of us. We’re all just fine!” he keeps saying.
    I stare at
him, unable to make words.
    And then the
tavern doors burst open, revealing three very strange-looking people. One
militant woman in a black beret flanked by two bony men garbed in grey.
    “Survivor?”
the woman barks, her eyes locked on me.
    “And you are?” I ask.
    “You must go
with her,” the Mayor tells me, throwing his eyes from the sight of his mangled
friend. “She will take care of you. Your body might be compromised.”
    The woman
snaps her finger. “Now, girl.”
    “There’s
nothing wrong!” the Mayor says, forcing the happiness onto his face again.
“All’s fine!—They’re gone!”
    I blink. “Who’s
gone?”
    And then the
woman’s got me by the arm before I even realize she’d advanced on me. No use
trying to pull away, this woman’s grip is humorless.
    As she guides
me toward the tavern door, however, my eyes flick over to the counter, having
nearly forgotten the man hiding there. You know, the one with a pulse.
    “Wait,” I say.
“I forgot my—my purse in the—”
    The militant
woman isn’t having it. “This way, girl.” And with her talons on my arm, I’m
ushered from the tavern. My last thought being, hope the man with the warm
hands can fend for himself.
    Whatever’s to
come of him.
    But first
thing’s first: What’s to come of me? I’m led through winding streets and
cobblestone roads into a part of Trenton I’ve not yet been. We stop at a stubby
door in an alleyway which, at the sound of the woman’s sharp shout, is opened
at once.
    Through a mess
of turning hallways and corridors, passing unlabeled doors and plain off-white
walls, I’m finally directed into a room that bears nothing