They were inside a partially darkened room, half of it lit by streams of moonlight invading from the gaping holes above them where the roof used to be. He reached out with his mind, but his range was limited in his current condition. It turned out he didn’t have to go very far after all.
There. They were outside the building. Immediately outside. Hundreds, thousands. They could sense his presence in return. Not just him, but the other blue-eyed ghouls, too. The two lifeless ones buried with him, and somewhere out there, two more. Not dead, but close. Dying.
The black eyes would not come in. They were confused and scared.
The man was still looking at him, the sparks of curiosity evident in his eyes. “You know, don’t you? They were out there beating on the door until you and your pals started dancing around up on the roof. Then they retreated back into the street. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”
He didn’t answer. He wanted to, but when he sent the command, his mouth wouldn’t move and no sounds came out, not even the hiss that he despised so much.
“Ah, sorry about that,” the man said. “Forgot to tell you, but you don’t really have lips anymore. Or a mouth, for that matter. I guess you’re going to have to grow them back, huh? Can you grow them back?”
He blinked, and the man actually smiled.
“She wanted me to shoot you in the head,” the man said. “We’ve had a recent history of not shooting people when we should have, so I don’t blame her. But I had to know.” He leaned in closer. “Can you hear me in there? Blink twice for yes and, well, I guess you wouldn’t blink if you can’t understand me, right?”
The man stared at him, and there was a slight uptick in his heartbeat. He was anxious.
So he blinked once, then a second time.
“So you can hear me. Hot damn!” He rocked back on his feet. “What number am I thinking of?” A chuckle. “Just joshin’ ya, buddy. Or am I? You guys are psychic, right?”
He didn’t blink.
“No?”
He remained still, eyes fixed on the man’s beaten and bruised face.
“Just a bit?”
The man sat down on the floor, the gun in his hand still draped nonchalantly over one bent knee. He could smell the fresh gunpowder in the air. All it would take was a shot to the head, just like with the other two dead blue eyes.
“You were there, in Starch,” the man said.
Starch? Yes, he remembered. It was a town not far from here, and of some significance to him. Or was it? His mind was stuck between trying to battle the pain and digging deep for memories that were slippery to the touch.
Starch. Yes.
He blinked twice.
“What about outside of Larkin? In the airfield hangar? Did you have something to do with that, too?”
Airfield? Hangar? He didn’t recall a Larkin. But then his recollection was unreliable at the moment in his fugue state.
“No?”
No? Yes? He wasn’t sure. With parts of his mind shut down to prevent the pain overload, it was hard to concentrate. There was a way to remember, but it would hurt. It would hurt a lot.
“What are you doing?” Was that concern in the man’s voice? “Pain’s finally pulling into the station, huh? And here I thought you guys didn’t feel pain anymore. I guess it’s true what they say — you do learn something new every day.”
Yes. Pain. A lot of it. And there was going to be more as he released the clamps that kept them at bay and his body began to burn. It started as small sensations, like tiny flickers of fire being lit before growing in intensity and beginning to flood the rest of him one brutal inch by brutal inch.
But at the same time the fog began to lift and memories returned, and while he still had great difficulty sifting through them and recognizing what he was looking at, it became easier with every passing second.
“Hey, you going to die on me or what? Um, again?”
The events of tonight returned.
Then last night.
All the way back to a fortnight.
No, too far.
Back, back…
The pain. God, the pain…
Yes, Larkin. The airfield. The hangar. In the room…
The pain!
He blinked twice.
The man raised both eyebrows. “Well, slap me on the ass and call me Sally.” Then, leaning forward again, “Who the fuck are you, buddy? What are you?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He knew who he was, but he had no voice and no ability to respond in any meaningful way. So he remained silent even as flames roared through him like lightning, scorching everything in their path. It was unlike anything he had experienced since the transformation, and he hoped never to face it again.
Slowly, very slowly, he attempted to push them down, shutting off the pain receptors one by one by one…
“I guess that was a stupid question,” the man said. “You not having a mouth to answer with and all.”
No mouth. No lips. Or tongue. Could he regenerate a tongue?
Maybe. He would find out soon enough.
“Do you know me?” the man asked, his blue eyes watching him intently as if they could look into his soul.
Soul? Did he even have a soul anymore—
Wait. What did the man ask?
“Do you know me?”
Yes. He knew him.
Didn’t he?
Yes, it was in there somewhere, hidden in the deeper recesses of his mind. He had refused to let them go in all the weeks and months since she changed him. It was buried deep and stored at the very bottom where everything important resided. He didn’t go to them often because they were dangerous. Remembering the past, remembering her, was dangerous.
But he dug through them now. Searching, searching…
There.
He blinked twice.
“You know my name.”
He remained still.
“You know me, but you don’t remember my name?”
Two blinks.
“I don’t know if I should be insulted by that. I’m guessing I should, just a little.”
Crunching sounds before a second figure appeared behind the first. The newcomer was tall and slim. Despite the blood and sweat and dirt, the natural smell of a woman clung to her skin. Where had she come from?
“Are you done with it?” she asked. There was something in her voice — traces of fear and anger and…disgust? “Just put it out of its misery. Do they even still feel pain?”
“Apparently they do,” the man said.
“Shoot it and get it over with.”
“He knows me.”
“What?”
“He knows me,” the man repeated. “He was at Larkin. And Starch.”
“The one at Larkin looks nothing like this one. It had black eyes, remember?”
“I know, but it says it was there. And I believe it.”
“You believe it? Danny, for God’s sake, look at it.”
Danny.
The name was like precious cargo rising to the top of his mind after being buried in the ocean for a millennia. He grasped desperately for it and held on, afraid it would slip out of his reach. It was important, this name.
Danny.
“Sua Sponte.”
“Rangers lead the way.”
“Not yet,” the human named Danny said. “I don’t know what’ll happen if I shoot it.”
“It’ll die,” the woman said. Her name eluded him, but it was familiar, and down there somewhere, too.