Then they were on me. Cold, stiff fingers dug into my flesh, and all I wanted to do was squeeze my eyes shut and let them have me. I didn’t want to watch their decrepit mouths rip me apart. But I made my eyes stay open. I made myself fight back through my sobs.
Their fingers dug off my blistered skin, and, oh God—it hurt! Their lidless eyes were so close I could see the milky haze where their pupils had once been. Carrion breath, numbing and noxious, rolled over me.
I kept screaming. I pawed at the hands—everywhere! The Dead were everywhere! This was not how I wanted to die! They pressed in on me and clawed at my face, at my chest.
I crumpled to the earth beneath their bone fingers.
“Eleanor!”
After what seemed an eternity, I heard my name.
“Eleanor!”
In a great, convulsing wave, the bodies surrounding me tottered back, and footsteps—sure, living footsteps—approached. “Eleanor, let me help you.”
I whimpered and lifted my head. My scabs were open and bleeding; the bandages were long gone.
“Elijah,” I rasped. Relief shuddered through me. “Y-you heard me?”
He slid a hand beneath my left arm and tugged me into a sitting position. “Yes... And I’m sorry my army hurt you.” He reached out and stroked the side of my face. “You’re bleeding everywhere.”
All my resolve, the clarity of my mission, my carefully laid plans—they all vanished when I gazed into Elijah’s sea-blue eyes. They were the same eyes they’d always been, with or without his spectacles. I didn’t see a monster before me; only my brother. Tender and true.
Tears stung in my eyes. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too.” He whipped his head around and then back to me. “Come. One of the Hungry draws near. We will be safer at the grave.”
He scooped me up with no effort and carried me through the lines of now-still corpses.
We reached our father’s grave. The marble cross that marked it towered high and heavy above me. It was a testament to Father’s good character, to the Fitt name, to our eternal lives in heaven—or so I’d always thought.
Now it seemed sinister. Wrong. There was no heaven here. Eternal life meant waking up as a putrid corpse.
The grass that had once adorned the plot was long gone, replaced by mud and exposed roots. A shovel lay nearby.
I avoided looking at the lip of the burial hole. I knew the mahogany coffin lay within, and I didn’t think I could stomach the sight of my father—or whatever remained of him.
Elijah set me gently on the dirt and knelt beside me. “Do you need anything? Water, perhaps?”
I swallowed. My mouth tasted like blood and tears. “No. I’m all right.”
He eyed me for several long moments. Then he rubbed the bridge of his nose as if his spectacles were still there and misbehaving. “Why are you here, El?”
“I-I wanted to see you. I’m worried. About you. About this.”
He stiffened. “I’m fine. You don’t have to look after me anymore.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Yet as I spoke the words, I realized they weren’t true. I did want to look after him. I wanted him to need me as much as I needed him.
He rose and dusted off his hands. “I... well, I’m sorry, El.”
I gulped. “For what?”
“I’m failing at my task. If you’re here to see Father then you’ll be disappointed.”
I clambered to my feet. “You can’t bring him back?”
“No.”
“Then don’t. It’s...” I reached for his sleeve. “It’s all right to stop.”
“No, it’s not.” He hunched over and pressed his palms to his eyes. “Over and over again I’ve tried, but Father’s spirit won’t answer my call. It’s as if... as if there’s something in my way. Something in the spirit realm that blocks him.”
“So leave it and come home. Please. Mama and I need you.” I tilted his chin to look at me. “We’re out of money, Elijah. Almost all of it is gone, and we need you.”
He jerked away from me. “Money won’t be a problem. I’ll go back to Egypt. I’ll resurrect the Black Pullet, and we’ll live in wealth for the rest of our days. Everything will be all right. But first, El, I need to bring Father back.”
“Please don’t!” I cried. “Please come home. I need you! If you stop now, we can go home and pretend none of this ever happened. We can climb the tree, read Shakespeare, and—”
“Listen to yourself.” His face scrunched up. “We can’t go back. Things will never be—can never be like they were. I’m not the weakling who left town, and you’re not the little girl I left behind.”
My breathing turned shallow and fast. I clenched his filthy sleeve in my fist. “Then we’ll leave. We’ll go abroad and see the world.”