They trudged through the snow, thin, here, as it was. The pathway they followed was lined with aspens. Long dead. Leafless and bent and gnarled. Their grey corpses standing as still as the buildings that stand as still and silent as nothing else ever has or ever will. Covered by the night’s fresh snowfall. Sunlight bounced and slid every which way from the snow to what little clean glass there was left to shine and what little metal was not clay red and pebbly with rust. The light made the dead aspens glitter, up and down the street like a thousand snowflakes caught in midair and kept there, frozen in time to brighten this graveyard of scarecrow trees. Though, The Man concentrated hard on his surroundings to make sure they did not make a misstep and lose their way and did not pay attention to the standstill beauty of the place

The Man led them down an alley; trading that street of winter awe for the smothering and claustrophobic in nature. That sunlight did little wonders here. Small piles of snow had awkwardly collected in piles along the alley and made the walking irregular in rhythm and difficult at times. Snow that had built up for the past month had finally started to pile over the buildings roofs that sandwiched them falling on top of the two travelers whenever a gust of wind happened to catch a drift. As the two of them plodded along hoods drawn up and heads hunkered down with no words being exchanged. At one point their path was blocked by a dumpster that had wedged itself stuck between the two buildings. The Man clambered up on top, slipped and slammed into it with his hip and a grunt. He raised himself up with one arm and brushed off some of the snow that rested on the dumpster, as though to find or perhaps dispel whatever it was that made him slip like that. He nodded at The Woman and took her hand to help her up.

They were back on a street again. No aspens or dumpsters. In one direction lay a raised road that went on for a while before it could be found collapsed, dead like some great dragon that was slain by some unknown knight or hero or peasants. The other way led deep into The City that The Man called home. They were on the edge of the city. The Man motioned to the collapsed bridge. “This way ‘ere,” he called through cracked and bluish lips.

As they approached the ramp-up to the bridge The Man veered off and went to a building to the side of it. Some old brick building, chalky and red with snow trapped in its crevices. They rounded one of its corners and there it was. A body. A skeleton, now, a human skeleton, spread and pinned against the flat of the wall, with arms outstretched and legs hanging free. Both the feet were missing.

“I sawr this, when it was still fresh –well, kinda fresh anyway, a moldy kinda fresh- and the Old Man just got all quiet like and shooed me away and wouldn’t tell me nuthin bout it cept to say that I should stay away from such things.” The Man scratched his chin and moved closer to the skeleton, scraping away snow that had built up into the foot of the wall. The Woman stood there, examining the unexpected thing that The Man had presented, aghast a little by the vivid of the gore of the image before her. No blood was on the wall, if there ever was it was long faded. Nothing was particularly mangled about the skeleton. But it was still gory. Still violent. Still so needless with the elaboration of the pinning.

“I’ve always wondered as to what this sed.” The Man returned to her side and pointed at the foot of the wall he had just uncovered. The Woman’s eyes softened, tinged as they were by a little sadness, but unsurprised still. She read over the message etched into the brick, that chalky and red brick, several times. Memorizing it. Feeling urged to do so in front of this silent, judging and eyeless stare of the condemned before her. “Well?” The Man prodded.

“Why didn’t you show me to this sooner?”

          The Man shrugged, “I forgot ‘bout it. So?” The Man looked upon her expectantly.

He is weary but He delights.

They lay together that night under their blankets. Unspeaking since those engraved words. A half-moon peered lazily down at them through the haze of the night sky scattering about uncertain light that dripped and dropped like a molten liquid on the wall outside and the rest of the frozen cityscape. The Man slept soundlessly and easily. Unstifled by the day’s events and even less so by The Woman’s demeanor to the whole affair. He was animalistic in nature. Beast-like and wild-minded, indelicate and reactionary to the immediacy of environmental changes that come about him in a whirlwind at times and the ever-slow pace of evolution at others, a non-voluntary apex of beast-like will and beast-like intelligence with only the barest knowing of the collapsed and decaying world around him.

That decay was not a factor. He slept. And hunted. And ate. And urinated. And defecated. And slept again. Contentment: that sly feeling that killed Athens to spite Socrates.

The Woman turned on her side and stared at The Man, her breathing falling in rhythm with the steady rise and fall of his chest and gentle escape of breath, spewing into open air and settling this way and that with all the dust and spiders and other bugs both visible and invisible that crawled and slinked across the wooden flooring that sagged just so. The Woman stared at The Man. Unsure, entirely, of what to make of the day that had just transpired. Instead of contemplation or reflection she just stared at this unfazed man all dressed in his unfazed demeanor. Then she turned and stared at the ceiling, equally as unfazed as The Man that lay next to her.

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Next Chapter: Horror Drums