Page 161 of War

“Your very nature is flawed,” War continues. “Too inquisitive, too selfish. And too brutal. Far too brutal.

“But no, Miriam, I don’t want all humans to die. My very essence was borne of human nature. Without you, there is no me.”

A chill runs down my arms. With every swing of his blade, the horseman is killing himself.

“So you’re not sorry for tonight,” I say.

“I cannot change my task, wife,” his kohl-lined eyes hold an age-old heaviness to them.

“You can decide not to do it,” I say.

“And why should I?” he challenges.

“Because your wife begs you to.”

War stills a little at the wordwife. It’s not often that I acknowledge who I am to him. I know he thinks it means that I believe in this strange marriage of ours, and maybe I was coming around to the possibility. But right now I only say it because I know it gets under his skin in a way few other things can.

“Humans have the luxury of being selfish, Miriam—but I don’t.”

It doesn’t feel selfish, trying to spare countless people from slaughter, but I can also tell from the sharp look in War’s eyes that tonight, my words will fall on deaf ears. I’m too emotionally invested, and he’s too adamant about his cause to be swayed.

I take another sip of my drink. The dead soldier has come back inside, carting more hot water to the basin and scooping up another handful of weapons on his way out.

The bath is for me, I know it without even asking. So I finish my drink and leave the table, stripping on my way to the tub. I don’t care what War sees, nor do I care right now if the corpse comes back in and gets an eyeful of boobs. Some of my anger really has ebbed away, but only so that a terrible kind of numbness can set in.

I step into the shallow bath, and I begin to wash myself because I smell like a corpse. I keep my back to the horseman, not interested in seeing him or talking to him or interacting in any sort of manner. Halfway through cleaning myself off, the zombie does come back in and I don’t bother covering myself. It doesn’t matter; his sightless eyes stare at absolutely nothing as he completes his task.

“So is that it, wife?” War’s voice rings out. “You’ll now pretend I don’t exist?”

“That would be impossible,” I say, so quietly I’m not sure he hears it.

The horseman’s chair scrapes back, and I think for an instant he’s going to approach me. After a moment’s pause, however, his footfalls move in the opposite direction. The tent flaps rustle, and then War is gone.

I towel off in the grim silence of the horseman’s tent. I’m exquisitely alone, and yet I can feel the horseman’s eyes everywhere. I know his dead lurk just outside the tent, waiting for me to run.

I toss my towel over a chair and slip into some clean clothes—clothes that someone else washed and dried and folded. Clothes that aren’t mine and don’t feel like mine, just like the rest of this place.

Then I move back to War’s table and I pour myself another drink, my eyes going to the flickering lamplight around me.

War’s a fool if he thinks blades are the only way to die. All this canvas, all these open flames. Fires break out in camp every week. It would be so easy to start one in here and let these flames finish the work they began in that burning building.

But I don’t knock over a lamp or set fire to the walls. I don’t want to die, despite my earlier bravado.

I close my eyes, a tear slipping out, and then I take another drink of the liquor. And then some more. I want to forget every unpleasant memory since the horsemen arrived.

I can’t. I already know I can’t, and getting drunk is only going to make me feel shittier. No amount of alcohol can strip away what I’ve seen. I push away my glass.

I’m living amidst an extinction.

That’s what this is. Only, rather than humans taking the entire world out along with ourselves, the horsemen decided it would just be us who died. Us crappy humans.

Getting up, I slip into War’s bed, ignoring the way it smells like him. My body is weary, my heart is weary, and shortly after I close my eyes, I drift off to sleep.

I’m awoken sometime later by the horseman, who joins me in the bed, one of his arms wrapping around my waist.

I stiffen in his arms.I’m not ready for this.

I try to wriggle away, but he holds me fast in place. He has to strong-arm everything, apparently.