The Garden of Darkness

“Promise.” A muscle in the woman’s forehead pulsed.

“I promise. Now please go away.” But the Cured-in-a-blue-dress crept closer to her. “Don’t hurt me,” said Clare. The woman with the ravaged face shook her head, but Clare, truly rattled, began to plead. “Please keep back. Please go away.”

“The bad man.” The woman’s voice was hoarse.

Somehow Clare knew immediately whom she was talking about. The Cured from the gold house.

“He’s dead,” said Clare.

The Cured-in-a-blue-dress reached over and put a hand on Clare’s shoulder. She spoke softly and clearly.

“I killed him.”

Then she slipped out of the room and was gone.





MASTER





THE MASTER FOUND it curious the things that children chose to travel with. They arrived at the mansion cold and starving—but among the cans of food and bits of blanket and clothing, they also had teddy bears and stuffed hippos and piglets and photographs of their parents and their brothers and sisters. They carried old newspaper clippings, and one of them had a ribbon from a horse show, and one of them had an old dog collar, and—this surprised the Master most of all—some of them carried their parents’ wedding rings.

It was just junk, designed to pull them back into a world that was dead, that was no part of the living world he was building. So there were room checks. Children who had rid themselves of their personal effects received praise. The others—not.

The children came to him, but not as many as he had hoped. There weren’t many people left, he reminded himself, child or Cured. But the Master wanted more children. He needed more children. So he would sometimes leave the charges he did have in the hands of Britta and Doug (the oldest boy of the arrivals), and he would go out looking for survivors. He had confidence in Britta. There wasn’t much to Doug, but he listened to everything that Britta said, and that was good enough for the Master. Britta was sound to the core.





THE MASTER’S PACK was heavy as he moved through the woods. It was filled with blankets, medicine and bandages, as well as enticements: bottles of juice, candy bars, stuffed animals—both pink and blue—and jewelry: gold necklaces, brooches studded with winking emeralds and rubies. It had been easier to break into jewelry stores than to find good-looking jewelry at a WalMart. He also carried plastic trucks and Star Wars figurines and a Cinderella Barbie with blue, blue eyes.

He shifted the pack. It wasn’t easy to find children who had not yet grown into Pest, but it was of paramount importance. He would give them a life, and they—well, the right ones—would keep him cured. He knew that SitkaAZ13 hadn’t given up on him yet, but the blood of the right kind of little girl would keep him alive. He was sure of it. But there were things one just didn’t tell the children. Quite a number of things. Not until they were ready.

He was making an inventory of his supplies in his head when he heard the sound. He was caught off guard. Usually he was well aware of a child in his vicinity before he heard it. He could smell their youth, he really could, or maybe he could just smell a human smell—the same way he knew when an animal was near, and what kind. The sharp smell of fox; the benign scent of hay that belonged to deer; the diseased smell of the raccoon.

He moved closer until he could hear the low chant:

“We all fall down. We all fall down.”

The child just kept chanting, in a low and monotonous tone, “We all fall down. We all fall down.” The Master slipped off his pack and got down onto the leaf litter. The child was obviously young; he needed to see it.

He crept forward. If it were too young, or if it were on the verge of death, there was no point in taking it back with him. He crept forward. A low stone wall was between him and the child.

“We all fall down.”

He slowly raised his head above the wall.

It was a girl child, foul with dirt that now offended his nose, her long hair slick with grease, her body rail thin. She must have been about eight. She was singing to the plastic head of a doll. Next to her was a stained sleeping bag covered with a pattern of carousel horses. A couple of plastic bags lay on top of it.

A little further on, he saw a body. Even at that distance, he could tell SitkaAZ13 had taken it. The smell of the body was sweet and strong.

The chanting went on. “We all fall down.” She had her back to the body, and he didn’t have to wonder why. Decay had already set in, and the corpse was rotting quickly, in the way that SitkaAZ13 corpses did. He understood that she probably couldn’t bear to look at her companion, but he felt no empathy. He never did.

The Master picked up a pebble and threw it a short distance away from her.

She looked up

Cornflower blue eyes.

She was going to be very useful.

“Hey. Don’t be afraid,” he said.