Tooth & Nail

5

Before Marty Kirk was a reaper, he’d been a top Hollywood producer. He put together movie deals that made hundreds of millions, he worked with the A-list of talent. His was a household name known even to people who didn’t often go to the movies. Marty Kirk. He was a regular guest on Jon Stewart and Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien.

But that was before Jon and Jay and Conan and their audiences of millions were swept away by a tide of flesh-eating madness.

That was before the Fall.

Now he was known as Brother Marty.

Now he was a reaper of the Night Church.

He wore the black clothes, the red tassels, the white wings. He dabbed his tassels in a chemical mixture that kept the living dead — the gray people — from attacking. He spent hours each day reciting prayers and singing hymns and listening to sermons about a god that Brother Marty had never even heard of before the Fall.

A god that, even now, he didn’t believe in.

Not at all. Not even a little.

And yet it was a god in whose name he had killed, and in whose name he had ordered other reapers to open red mouths in the flesh of the heretics and blasphemers.

Brother Marty never once spoke of his lack of personal faith. He never even hinted at it.

Brother Marty, above all else, wasn’t stupid.

As the old saying goes, he knew on which side his bread was buttered.

Over the last nine years he had risen within the ranks of the Night Church, first from the least capable foot soldier in the service of Saint John, to a member of the logistics team, to the head of recruitment, all the way to his current position as a member of the Council of Sorrows and a personal aide to the saint.

Now he traveled everywhere with Saint John. He’d gone with him from Wyoming to Utah, to Idaho and Montana, and all through Nevada. Zigzagged throughout the west, raising armies of reapers, burning towns and settlements of blasphemers, carrying out the will of Thanatos.

Or, as Brother Marty privately viewed it, carrying out the master plan of an absolute total nutbag. Saint John was a monster by anyone’s standards. A serial killer of legendary status before the Fall, a menace to society who had nonetheless been the inspiration for half a dozen movies and twice as many books, and who was now the charismatic leader of a vast army of killers. It was a crazy place to be, but in this world it was the only safe place left to stand. Marty always looked out for Marty. First and foremost. And to accomplish that, he did whatever he had to do, to whomever he had to do it.

He did not consider himself evil. Marty didn’t believe in evil. Evil was something priests and rabbis droned on about, and Marty hadn’t seen the inside of a synagogue since he was ten. He didn’t believe that there was anything after death. All there was after this was bones in a box. No redemption, no paradise. Nothing, zip, nada.

So the only smart thing to do was stay alive as long as possible, and stay as well fed and protected as possible until the last gasp.

Nowhere was safer than with Saint John. The reapers were an unstoppable force.

And Saint John knew how to call on an even bigger and far more dangerous horde — the living dead. The saint and his reapers used their protective chemicals to be able to walk among the gray people, and employed dog whistles to call and direct the rotting walkers.

Who could ever stand in the way of that?

A few weeks ago Saint John had left Nevada, taking the main body of his reaper army with him in search of a string of nine previously unknown towns in central California. Nine towns packed with people whose flesh, according to the saint, ached to feel the kiss of the knife.

The problem was… California was a big darn state, and these towns hadn’t existed back when maps were still being made. They were refugee camps that had grown into gated communities. Saint John wanted them destroyed. He wanted to burn them as a statement that no one may defy the will of Lord Thanatos.

All praise to his darkness, thought Brother Marty sourly. All praise, yada yada yada.

But as he approached the saint, he composed his face into one of reverence and humility.

He dropped to his knees. “Honored one,” said Marty as he bent and kissed the dirt caked on Saint John’s shoes. Then, like an obedient dog, he glanced up at the saint.

Saint John’s dark eyes were so deeply set that they made his pale face appear skeletal. His head was tattooed with a pattern of thorny vines. He wore black trousers and a billowy black shirt, his legs and arms wrapped with bloodred ribbons. On his chest was a beautifully rendered chalk drawing of angel wings. He was Saint John of the Knife, and the reapers were his flock, and he was the single most impressive and charismatic person Brother Marty had ever met. And he’d met everyone in Hollywood.

“Did you find a scout for me?” asked the saint.

Brother Marty hesitated for a moment. “I did… and I didn’t. It’s complicated.”

“Stand up and talk to me,” said Saint John. “Let me see your face.”

Brother Marty got to his feet. He did not tremble, as many of the reapers did in the presence of Saint John. He had that much self-control; he was too practiced a performer, even as a producer, to show weakness during any meeting.

“We found a small gang of crooks. Lowlifes, you know the type,” said Marty. “Their leader was a gun thug named — and I’m not joking — Tony Grapes. Real name. Anyway, I appealed to Tony’s better nature, and he very willingly and enthusiastically, I might add, opened red mouths in all four of his own goons fast as you can say summer blockbuster. Wham, bam, and down they go.”

Saint John nodded his approval. There was the slightest trace of a smile on his severe mouth, as there often was when he listened to Brother Marty.

“So, we do the whole conversion process, and our friend Tony here is an instant altar boy. He can’t help us enough, he can’t be more helpful. He’s so helpful I want to tell him to shut up already, but since I just told him to talk, I can’t very well turn that faucet off. Anyway, I ask him if he ever heard of a place called Mountainside, and he has. That’s good, that’s great, that’s peaches and ice cream.”

“But…?” coaxed Saint John.

“But… he don’t exactly know where it is.”

Saint John said nothing. He was a patient man, and he allowed Brother Marty to get to his point in his own way.

“So, suddenly Brother Tony and I are having a new set of contract negotiations, and you know how that goes. Things get loud, things get wet. Long story short, he knows a guy who knows a guy who does know where Mountainside is.”

“Was our new reaper able to tell us where to find this friend of a friend?”

“Ah, well, that’s where it gets complicated,” said Marty with a sad smile. “As it turns out, the guy he knows is a pal, but the guy his guy knows, the one who actually can tell us where Mountainside is — he’s not exactly a friend of our Mr. Tony Grapes.”

“Oh?”

“It seems Brother Tony used to run with a crowd who did considerable business with someone this other guy didn’t like. There was some kind of wild craziness a while ago, and now this other guy would like to see Tony’s head on a pole. Maybe metaphorically, maybe not, Tony wasn’t clear on that point. This other guy scares the turkey stuffing out of Mr. Grapes.”

“Who is this other man?” asked Saint John. “Who is this enemy of god and where can we find him?”

“That’s what I asked Brother Tony, and he says that he can take us right to him, but he wants protection because this fellow has made some vague threats about throat-cutting and spinal separation. Credible threats, apparently. The man’s a trade guard who works all up and down the California border towns and outposts.”

“His name?”

“Sweeney,” said Brother Marty. “His name is Iron Mike Sweeney.”