Luke stood with the smoking gun held tightly in numb fingers, and watched the bridge float away into the mist. He heard splashes, but no one came toward him. No one shot at him. The expended .45 shell bobbed in the water like a small boat. Luke watched until it vanished, wondering for a moment just where the fuck it was going. He wished he’d had the presence of mind to snatch Susan’s rifle.
A rope creaked, and Luke turned. A black ash stood tall in the center of the little island, its dead roots anchored in dead soil. A dozen busted pieces of wood were nailed to the trunk, and strips of ragged canvas hung from the branches like a mummy’s wrappings. A fraying, hemp rope hung from a top branch, and a rocking chair dangled from the end. Luke sighed. Seated in the chair and dressed in dusty black scraps, was a headless body. Hanging from the foot rest was a bent, dented number plate with rust around the edges. Written on it were three, simple words; Welcome to Hell.
Luke shook his head slowly. He coughed, wincing as he moved his left hand. He flexed his remaining fingers, gritted his teeth, and snapped the string holding the tip of his pinky on. Luke wrapped the warm, wet nub in a cloth, and put it in his pocket.
“Don’t mind me,” he said to the dead man. “I’m just passing through.”
Charlie nodded, bobbing his hollow neck in a wind Luke didn’t feel.
The tree was a directory of the damned. One set of splintered boards pointed toward a plank bridge anchored to the ground with steel stakes. In that direction were Gehenna, Tartaros, and Limbo. Another pointed to a stone trestle that stretched onto a shadowy patch. It said Viti, Butcher Field, and the Stalking Grounds were that way. An arrow pointed at nothing, but when Luke looked closer he saw the water was broken by rounded stones the color of infected teeth. The splintered sign claimed Sheol was down that path. Scratched into the bottom of every sign in jagged, palsied letters was the word Midian.
Luke seared the worst of his wounds, then wrapped them in the cleanest strips of cloth he had. He drank all but a mouthful of his water, and found his shovel lying in the dead, dry weeds. There was a pockmark in the blade, but it was still serviceable. He stood next to the tree, and listened. He didn’t hear anything except the dead man’s creaking rope and the shushing water all around him. He tried to orient his direction. He looked up at the moon, but it sat high in the sky with no stars anywhere to be seen. In the end he chose the rope bridge, carefully notching the post before setting off across the planks.
Luke shifted his weight slowly at first, keeping his good hand on the rough-spun rope. It prickled his skin, and after about ten feet he tied another strip of cloth around his palm. That was better, but gripping the rope still felt like he was bare-hand fishing in a nettle jar. Down in the water fairy lights bobbed like the souls of drowned children. Luke reached a pair of heavy, wooden pylons. The left said Look, and the right said Don’t Touch.
The second span dipped lower, a few of the slats nearly kissing the water below. Luke focused on the boards, and on putting one foot in front of the other. His shoulders hunched, and the cords in his neck stuck out. He was gritting his teeth, but couldn’t make himself stop. Step, creak, wait, breathe became the stuttered rhythm of his life. The rhythm broke without warning as a board snapped, and Luke’s left foot plunged into the water.
It was like stepping on a stove. A hiss, followed by a sublime moment of nothing. Then lightning coursed along his leg, and slammed into his head. Luke tried to scream, but only managed a high, mewling sound like a dog whose lungs had been crushed by a car. He threw himself forward, and the bridge shuddered under his horizontal weight. His foot came out of the water, but kept burning in his boot. Luke snatched his canteen, and dumped the remaining water over his foot. There wasn’t much, but smoke rose from Luke’s leg as the cool stream turned his boot from soaked to sodden. He fell back, breathing in little sobs as he waited for the pain to retreat.
It did, eventually. Luke moved his foot experimentally. The skin felt taut, swollen inside its leather casing like an overcooked sausage. He wiggled each toe, and felt it move even if there was a delay from his brain to his foot. He rolled onto his side, and that was when he saw it; the sleek, black stock of a standard-issue M-16. Luke blinked, but the stock stayed there, standing straight up not two feet from the bridge.
Luke was flat on his belly, peering at the stock. There was a deep groove along the right side, and one screw seemed a little loose, but it looked serviceable. A ball chain ran through the sling clip, and a single dog tag trailed in the water. He wondered how long it had been submerged, and if it would be possible to dry it out and get it working again. He wondered if the bayonet was still in one piece. He ran his tongue back and forth over his teeth. He tasted blood, and he couldn’t place when that had started. He swallowed hard, and reached. His fingertips were half an inch from the rifle butt when the bridge shivered. Luke froze. He looked down, and something looked back up at him.
The kid had been handsome. His hair looked like black silk in the water, and the strands billowed out to reveal a face that was all hard planes and sharp features. He had a straight nose, a strong jaw, and a single, dark eye like a polished agate. The other eye was gone, swallowed up by a black hole in the side of his skull. White bone jutted up through an alien landscape of melted fat and seared skin. He was missing a leg, and most of an arm. The rifle was driven in through his heart, pinning him down like a moth on a cork board. The eye blinked, and the mouth opened. He reached for Luke, and Luke snatched his arm back so fast he was sure he’d tip the bridge and spill himself over the side.
The mist shifted. Upstream the scarred stock of an AK-47 stuck out at a 45-degree angle. The distinct, heavy butt of an M-1 Garand rose like the mast of a sunken ship, straight and true with the broken bowline of its strap bobbing to and fro. There were more, many more, in uneven, staggered lines up and down the wide river. They shifted, shook, and occasionally a few fingers broke the surface. They scrabbled at the weapons, fingernails leaving gouges and grooves, but none of them came free.
Luke turned his eyes away, and pulled himself to his feet. He ignored the pain the ropes cut into his palms, and the protest from his missing finger. He rejected the outrage from his swollen foot or twisted ankle. He took deep, chest-stretching breaths, and looked straight ahead. He didn’t run, but only because some distant part of him knew that if he did he’d go down to join the dead men all around him.
The bridge ended, and Luke collapsed onto solid ground. He coughed and wheezed, cried and shuddered. He heaved, but nothing came up. Something burst in his boot, and thick fluid sloshed in his sock. He contemplated staying where he was until something came along and put him out of his misery. Or doing it himself. He stroked his hand along the .45 then froze. He pulled his hand away from the gun, got up, and started moving again.
Luke toured islands of madness in a quiet, uncaring sea. He passed through an orchard of gallows trees, where meat had been hung piecemeal from vines that pulsed and quivered like spider veins. He saw a place where cleavers were buried in salted stumps like axes awaiting the grinder. Another was covered in stone plinths, leaning against each other in some places, standing tall in others. Some bore dark stains, and the wind howled like the rocks had bitten it bloody. He followed mismatched footprints through gray dirt on an isle where nothing grew, and felt eyes on his back even though there was nowhere to hide. He crossed over stone arches, chain suspension bridges, twisted trees that grew from one bank to another, and made his way over fallen stones where the river gurgled and whispered with drowned secrets. He saw shapes in the shadows; hunched, bent things that watched with wide, yellow eyes as he passed. Twice they ran when he pulled his pistol. The third time he fired, and something screamed. He kept moving.