“Part of living,” I say, “is feeling pain, senseless pain.” I could tell him a thousand stories about the sheer unfairness of the world. But why bother? He doesn’t give a shit about our problems.
“I am what I am,” he says, resolute. He sounds almost … defeated. “I came here with a task, and I will see it completed.”
“Who gave you the task? God? The devil?” I throw my hand up in the air. “The fucking Easter Bunny? I thought you were Pestilence the Conqueror, not someone’s goddamned errand boy!”
“Careful, human,” he warns, his voice dangerous.
“Careful? If you’re so frightened of my words, then shut me up.”
I went too far. I know that as soon as I’ve spoken.
Pestilence raises his eyebrows at my challenge. A second later, he rips off a section of the dusty sheet that covers the nearby couch. Getting up, he twists the linen in his hands. The action looks ominous.
He kneels in front of me, his eyes meeting mine. And then he shoves the linen between my lips.
Never in my life has someone tried to gag me.
For a moment, I’m dumbfounded, but then the moment passes, and I’m a raging bull, dropping my mug of water and battling Pestilence as he ties the material securely behind my head. I don’t manage much more than slapping at his face before he grabs my shoulder and thrusts my head into the mattress. He presses his knee against my back.
I buck against him madly, trying to shake him off, but he’s more solid than simple flesh and blood, and my efforts get me nowhere.
Behind me I hear another rip, and then he’s grabbing my wrists and looping the material around them.
I’m shrieking into the makeshift gag.
“Oooooouuu muuufffuughhrrr!” I roar.
He binds my wrists tight. Once he’s finished, he sits me up and squats in front of me.
Mistake.
I lift my foot and slam it into his pretty-boy face.
He rocks back, catching my ankle between his hands. “Do I need to bind these too?”
“Ullll uuuuggghinnnn eeeenngggh ooooouuuuu!”
He holds my foot hostage, waiting for me like I’m a toddler having an unreasonable tantrum.
I give my foot a few useless jerks before I give up. This guy makes few empty threats, and I’m not all that interested in being completely restrained.
When I stop fighting him, he releases my foot, reaching a hand up to his face to rub it where I clocked him.
“You hit solidly for a human—I’ll give you that.”
“Uuuuugh oooo, aaaahuuulll.”
“I’m surprised you’re this mad; you’re the one who suggested silencing you.”
I shriek again.
“Calm yourself, little human. Maybe then I’ll release you.”
Little?
He goes back to his side of the fire and loses himself in the flames.
I sit there, across from him, seething, my breath coming out in hot, ragged pants.
Next chance I get, I’ll kick him in his holy balls.
Some unnamable amount of time goes by like that, the two of us sitting close but mentally leagues apart.
Finally, Pestilence looks up at me. “Are you ready to be civilized?”
“Uuuuh oooo!”
“No? Hmmm, maybe I’ll give you a little longer.”
Pride is a lonely soldier, seeing out his watch when there’s no one else there to care. I thought fire training had burned most of it out of me, but nope.
In the end, I cool myself down. Getting angry at one of the horsemen of the apocalypse for bringing about the end of man is like getting angry at ice for being cold.
I lay down on my side, ignoring the shooting pain as my weight settles on one of my bound hands.
Wordlessly, Pestilence gets up and loosens my bindings, first removing my gag, and then, when I don’t immediately curse him out, removing the linens that bind my wrists.
He sits back down, staring at the fire. I look from him, to it, and then I turn my back on both, curling up on the mattress and drawing one of the musty blankets over me.
It’s still early evening, but I’m over the day. Over Pestilence and his macabre task. Over grief and anger and all those other emotions that hang heavy inside of me.
I can feel Pestilence’s gaze on my back just as surely as if he placed a physical hand against it, but I don’t acknowledge it. I close my eyes and will myself to sleep.
My body is more tired than I assume because within minutes, I’m out.
Chapter 19
Vancouver 18 km.
I stare at the sign in growing horror.
Up until now, I’ve only ever seen the horseman pass through settlements and small towns. But Vancouver is another beast altogether.
Hundreds of thousands of people live there. Surely they’ve already posted evacuation notices. Surely the city is empty enough …
The two of us continue down the highway, and each hour that passes has me more and more tightly wound.
The wilderness gives way to ritzy neighborhoods. The houses are nestled on either side of the highway, most secreted away behind large trees and shrubs, but still visible enough for them to see the water on our right.
There’s not a soul in sight.
The closer to the city we get, the smaller and more tightly packed the houses become. Here, in the outlying suburbs, I spot the first true signs of life. The sight of a biker off in the distance, the faint sounds of shouting.
The click of Trixie’s hooves against the asphalt is suddenly deafening. It reminds me too much of the moment Pestilence rounded the corner into my neck of the woods.
So I shouldn’t be surprised when a gunshot shatters the normal sounds of the day.
But I am. I nearly fall out of my seat at the noise.
The horseman’s grip tightens. “Hold on.”
He clicks his tongue, and Trixie takes off at a gallop.
We race down the highway at breakneck speeds. Another gunshot follows the first, then several more as a few doomed individuals try their hand at vigilante justice.
None of the bullets, however, find their target. Even as the sound of gunshots fades in the distance, Pestilence races on.
The highway branches, the 99 separating from the 1. Instinctively, the horseman heads west, staying on the 99. I don’t know if he is aware of this, but the decision is a good one.
We sprint down the highway, crossing the bridge before entering Stanley Park. Here the city is interrupted by a dense patch of wilderness. Still, my body is poised for another assault. In a city with this many inhabitants, there’s bound to be more.
The park blurs by us, the trees blending together to create a green backdrop.
On the other side of the park, blocks and blocks of high rises loom ahead of us and to our right, their steel and glass frames glittering in the midday light. Between each block of them I catch glimpses of the ocean.
That’s all I notice before the gunshots resume.
Pestilence yanks on Trixie’s reins and steers us off the highway and down a side street, making a beeline for the water. The goliath structures stand like sentinels on each side of us as we dash down the road.
I can’t hear much over the pound of hoof beats, just the steadily increasing sound of gunfire. If maneuvering us off the highway was supposed to solve our situation, it hasn’t.
Like me, other people—many of them by the sound of it—decided to sacrifice themselves in order to kill the horseman. I wonder if they, too, assumed the horseman could die.