Page 77 of Famine

The Reaper tosses me onto the mattress. Just as I’m scrambling to sit up he gets on the bed, his knee going to my chest.

I thrash as best I can against him; it isn’t much, my shoulder still throbs and I’m tired after a day of being in the saddle.

“Get off of me,” I growl.

Instead of doing just that, Famine grabs the bottom of my travel-stained nightgown. There’s a momentary pause, when I realize exactly what he’s about to do.

“Don’t,” I say.

He does.

Grabbing the bottom of the makeshift dress, he rips off a strip of fabric, then uses it to bind one of my wrists to a bedpost. I tug against the binding, but it’s alarmingly secure.

“So this is your kink, then?” I say, fuming. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a bondage man, but then again, I wouldn’t have pegged you for evil, either.”

Famine rips off another strip of the dress, and it’s quickly going from an old-lady nightgown to something a bit more salacious. I don’t entirely disapprove.

I flail, trying to keep my remaining wrist out of Famine’s grip. But, it’s the injured arm here, so my efforts are paltry. Famine captures my wrist in a matter of seconds. He handles my injured arm gentler than I expect as he moves it towards the other bedpost. It still hurts like a motherfucker.

He ties my wrist to the bedpost, then sits back on his haunches.

“There,” he says, assessing his work, “now you can’t get in too much trouble.”

“You havegotto be kidding me,” I say.

“I’ll come for you later,” he says, backing off the bed. “Until then,behave.”

Because there’s so much trouble I could get up to.

… Says the prostitute on the bed.

Okay,correction: there’s only so much trouble I’dwantto get up to, given my circumstances.

The Reaper leaves the room, his footfalls growing fainter and fainter as he walks away.

“If anyone so much as looks at that door for too long,” I hear him call in the distance, “I will gut you and feed your entrails to you as you lay dying.”

Jesus.

I guess I’m going to have to behave.

Damnit.

I lay there for hours, trapped on that damn bed.

Outside my room, I can hear people bustling about, shouting orders to each other. Unfortunately, the same awful procession of people comes to Famine’s door just as they have in the towns before this. And just like all those other unfortunate interactions, these ones don’t end well either.

I can hear the screams, but worse, I hear the crackle of a bonfire somewhere nearby, and I can smell the smoke. At first it smells as smoke should, but the longer it burns, the more … cloying andmeatythe smell gets.

I gag a little when I realize why that is. I lean my face into my shoulder, coughing like I can somehow get the smell and taste out of my nose and throat. That’s about when I realize that I’m leaning into my bad arm, and the bandage that covered it for hours has simply …vanished.

The horseman has some strange, terrible magic.

Once the shadows deepen and day turns to night, the procession of people tapers off.

For some time all I hear is the snap and sputter of the bonfire. But then, that sound is interrupted by ominous footfalls that can only belong to the Reaper. They get louder and louder until they come to a halt at the threshold of the room.

In the dying light, Famine looms in the doorway.