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For a second I think the army’s been here but then I see plants growing up in the burnt-out buildings and no smoke is rising from any fire and the wind just blows thru it like only the dead live here. I look round and there’s a few decrepit docks on the river, just down from the bridge, one lonely old boat knocking against it in the current and a few more half-sunk boats piled halfway up the riverbank along from what may have been a mill before it became a pile of burnt wood.
It’s cold and it’s long dead and here’s another place on New World that never made it to subdivided farming.
And I turn back round and in the centre of it stands Aaron.
His face is back to how it was when the crocs tore it open, peeled half away, his tongue lolling out the side of the gash in his cheek.
And he’s still smiling.
“Join us, young Todd,” he says. “The church is always open.”
“I’ll kill you,” I say, the wind stealing my words but I know he can hear me cuz I can hear every last thing he’s saying.
“You won’t,” he says, stepping forward, his fists clenched by his sides. “Cuz I says you ain’t a real killer, Todd Hewitt.”
“Try me,” I say, my voice sounding strange and metallic.
He smiles again, his teeth poking out the side of his face, and in a wash of shimmer he’s right in front of me. He puts his cut up hands to the opening of his robe and pulls it apart enough to show his bare chest.
“Here’s yer chance, Todd Hewitt, to eat from the Tree of Knowledge.” His voice is deep in my head. “Kill me.”
The wind’s making me shiver but I feel hot and sweaty at the same time and I can’t get no more than a third of a breath down my lungs and my head is starting to ache in a way that food ain’t helping and whenever I look anywhere fast everything I see has to slide into place to catch up.
I clench my teeth.
I’m probably dying.
But he’s going first.
I reach behind me, ignoring the pain twixt my shoulders, and I grab the knife outta the sheath. I hold it in front of me. It’s shiny with fresh blood and glinting in sunlight even tho I’m standing in shadow.
Aaron pulls his smile wider than his face can really go and he pushes his chest out to me.
I raise the knife.
“Todd?” Manchee barks. “Knife, Todd?”
“Go ahead, Todd,” Aaron says and I swear I smell the dankness of him. “Cross over from i
“I’ve done it,” I say. “I’ve already killed.”
“Killing a Spackle ain’t killing a man,” he says, gri
I grip the knife hard and I make a snarling sound and the world wavers.
But the knife still ain’t falling.
There’s a bubbling sound and gooey blood pours outta the gash in Aaron’s face and I realize he’s laughing.
“It took a long, long time for her to die,” he whispers.
And I call out from the pain–
And I raise the knife higher–
And I aim it at his heart–
And he’s still smiling–
And I bring the knife down–
And stab it right into Viola’s chest.
“No!” I say, in the second that it’s too late.
She looks up from the knife and right at me. Her face is filled with pain and confused Noise spills from her just like the Spackle that I–
(That I killed.)
And she looks at me with tears in her eyes and she opens her mouth and she says, “Killer”.
And as I reach out for her, she’s gone in a shimmer.
And the knife, clean of all blood, is still in my hand.
I fall onto my knees and then pitch forward and lie on the ground in the burnt-out settlement, breathing and coughing and weeping and wailing as the world melts around me so bad I don’t feel like it’s even solid no more.
I can’t kill him.
I want to. I want to so bad. But I can’t.
Cuz it ain’t me and cuz I lose her.
I can’t. I can’t I can’t I can’t.
I give in to the shimmering and I disappear for a while.
It’s good old Manchee, the friend who’s proved truest, who wakes me up with licks to my face and a worried murmured word coming thru his Noise and his whines.
“Aaron,” he’s yelping, quiet and tense. “Aaron.”
“Leave off, Manchee.”
“Aaron,” he whimpers, licking away.
“He ain’t really there,” I say, trying to sit up. “It’s just something–”
It’s just something Manchee can’t see.
“Where is he?” I say, getting up too fast, causing everything to swirl bright pink and orange. I reel back from what’s waiting for me.
There are a hundred Aarons at a hundred different places, all standing round me. There are Violas, too, frightened and looking to me for help, and Spackles with my knife sticking outta their chests and there’re all talking at once, all talking to me in a roar of voices.
“Coward,” they’re saying. All of ’em. “Coward” over and over again.
But I wouldn’t be a Prentisstown boy if I couldn’t ignore Noise.
“Where, Manchee?” I say, getting to my feet, trying not to see how everything’s pitching and sliding.
“This way,” he barks. “Down the river.”
I follow him thru the burnt-out settlement.
He leads me past what musta been the church and I don’t look at it as we go by and he runs up a small bluff and the wind’s getting howlier and the trees are bending and I think it’s not just how I’m seeing them and Manchee has to bark louder to let me know.
“Aaron!” he barks, sticking his nose in the air. “Upwind.”
Thru the trees on the little bluff I can see downriver. I can see a thousand Violas looking frightened of me.
I can see a thousand Spackle with my knife killing them.
I can see a thousand Aarons looking back at me and calling me “Coward” with the worst smile you ever seen.
And beyond them, in a camp by the side of the river, I see an Aaron who ain’t looking back at me at all.
I see an Aaron kneeling down in prayer.
And I see Viola on the ground in front of him.
“Aaron,” Manchee barks.
“Aaron,” I say.
Coward.
“What are we go
I raise my head from the cold river water and let it splash down my back. I stumbled back down from the bluff, elbowing my way thru crowds all calling me coward, and I got to the riverbank and I plunged my head straight in and now the cold is making me shake violently but it’s also calming the world down. I know it won’t last, I know the fever and spack blood infection will win in the end, but for now, I’m go