7.05
The snowstorm raged all around us. Progress was slow, hampered by weather and the increasingly inconsistent rules of the city’s layout. We could somehow still get turned around by walking in a straight line, and there were threats everywhere. Many minor.
We waited while one threat lingered. It wasn’t one of the minor ones.
A fat man, with two women and a man in his company, occupying a bus shelter when the buses had stopped traveling their routes days ago. All four wore winter clothes, but they had a demeanor like some of the sketchier homeless I’d run into, once upon a time. Little details that made me think of meth-zombies, cokeheads, or anorexic people. There was a kind of look in their eyes, as far as I could make them out, a dark gleam that had a way of working its way into people’s eyes when one single idea dominated their existence.
Except these things were Others. Their purpose was simple enough.
The fat one carried a dismembered arm, raising it to his mouth periodically to take a bite.
“Ghouls are supposed to be thin,” Rose said.
I heard pages turning.
“I played a video game with ghouls in it once,” Evan said. “They were a level up from the regular zombies.”
“That’s not what this is,” Rose said.
“It’s just an idea,” Evan said.
“It’s not… damn it, ghouls are supposed to be thin. The three hanging around him are thin. Why is that one fat?”
The fat one turned, eyes scanning the curtains of snow that were falling.
“Maybe it isn’t a ghoul,” I said.
“All the other signs are there. It fits.”
“It’s really not the focus right now. Assuming it’s a ghoul or it’s ghoul-like, what do we do? I’d really rather not take the long way around, get lost and run into something else.”
“Ghouls are individuals who’ve interrupted the circle of life and death, usually by eating the dead, coming back from near-death one too many times, or practicing necromancy.”
“Black magic?” I asked.
“Yeah. Maybe I should amend that to say ‘practicing necromancy badly‘. Using terms we’re mostly familiar with, they’re individuals who are out of balance. They’re the spinning plates that are only just hanging on, and that means they need a fine touch to keep going. They do that with periods of convalescence, like hibernation, and bursts of… hunger is the wrong word. Life or death voraciousness. Maddened with a need for sustenance. More like a rabid dog than human.”
“So they are basically super-zombies,” Evan said.
I heard Rose sigh.
“Sustenance? Feasting on human flesh,” Maggie added.
“The go-to way, yeah,” Rose replied. “If they have their wits about them, then they can use the necromancy they knew in life, or they just move between areas with an awful lot of death or life energy.”
“But they mostly manage by eating human flesh,” Maggie said. “Right?”
“Essentially. No warning, three hour window to find food or perish, rest for months or years. Depending on where their personal balance is sitting, they eat either corpses or they scarf down bits of still-living victims they’ve found in isolated spots.”
“Can we not be the still-living victims?” Evan asked. “I don’t have much meat on me. Look at me…”
He got out from under my scarf and puffed up.
“I weigh as much as the battery from the remote control, and a lot of that is feathers.”
“I don’t know if that’s a concern. These guys don’t look maddened with hunger,” I commented.
“The contraction of the city is pushing locals out of their usual haunts,” Rose said. “They’re probably trying to find their way back, maybe grabbing some food to keep nearby while they’re at it.”
“If that’s the case, shouldn’t they pass?” I asked.
“They’re dead. They don’t feel the cold, they don’t get tired, the only thing that drives them is a need to gorge themselves with flesh. They aren’t going to move until they have a reason to move.”
I stared across the road. My leg was cramping from crouching behind the snowbank.
“We can’t afford to go around,” I said. “We need to hurry this along, before the window of opportunity disappears. How do you stop ghouls?”
“Conventional wisdom is that you stave them off by reintroducing them to the cycle of life.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“The go-to answer is menstrual fluids,” Rose said. “Drawn on their forehead, fed to them, ‘poison’ a weapon with it.
“Huh?” Evan asked.
I glanced at Maggie before I realized what I was doing.
“No sir,” Maggie said, deadpan.
“Damn,” I said.
“There’s one benefit to being a vestige,” Rose said. “My body doesn’t change.”
“I don’t get it,” Evan said.
“You don’t want to know,” I said.
“I helped against that black demon in the factory. What could be worse than that?”
“Other options, Rose?” I asked, ignoring him.
“Some plants are tied to the cycle of death and rebirth. Holly.”
“We used holly against the Hyena,” Evan said. “See? I know stuff. You can tell me stuff. No need to leave me out because I’m a kid.”
“No holly near here, as far as I can tell,” I said. “Not sure how that would work, either.”
“Funereal icons,” Rose said. I heard her turning a page. “Either done over the ghoul’s prone body or you can do it from a distance if you have the full name of the ghoul. Not going to work. Don’t have any of that.”
“Just tellll me,” Evan said.
Maggie glanced at me.
“I’m not going there,” I said. “‘You don’t want to know‘ is generally something you should take at face value in this world, he needs to learn that, but he’s not going to learn from me.”
“Coward,” Rose said. “Come here, Evan.”
“Yes!”
He strutted, wagging his tail-feathers in the general direction of my face before flying down to my hand, which I was holding next to the mirror pendant.
Rose murmured her explanation.
“No.” Evan said. “My mom told me about that! No! Don’t- What’s wrong with you?”
“Shh,” I said. “Let’s not get their attention.”
“You make the super zombies drink it?”
“Shh,” I said, again, a little sharper than before.
“There aren’t any other options listed,” Rose said. “They’re apparently hard to put down, I wouldn’t want to pick a fight. I think these books assume you’re not a matter of minutes away from dealing with the monster in question. They figure you’ll be able to ask around or call favors.”