The Dead Scout's Handbook of Afterlife Survival

Chapter Twenty-Five: Warm-up

The sun was setting and they were coming. As if unveiling greatness itself, Cayden set the final touches to their masterpiece by setting the rubble along the roads ablaze. Atop the Greybull Hotel, Sarah would watch over him by candlelight.

Cayden moved to the farthest ranch house with Martha. With the dual efforts of lock and ice, the door appeared jammed shut, so with an index finger, Cayden burned the frame, steam sizzling from around it. After tracing the entire perimeter, he dragged it off its hinges and examined the brass plates--the severed attachments hissed back at him.

Inside, the cold cracked the wallpaper of the main hallway while frost formed in the grooves of the tiled kitchen floors. Wind whipped snowflakes past Martha's silhouette and rattled a door on the far end of the hallway. Over the cracking walls, dark and spectral in the scarce light, pictures of children, animals Cayden didn't recognize, and an elderly couple swayed in the wind. On the swinging door, another rectangular patch of fresher wood highlighted its otherwise dark surface. Teeth chattering, Martha brushed by Cayden. Cayden wouldn't be heating the house; melted snow on the roof would be a dead giveaway.

He passed an open bedroom strewn with rumpled laundry and through the far window, he spotted the flapping triangular flag they raised over the hotel. When Sarah or Rebecca spotted The Four, Rebecca would aim the tip of the flag in the direction of the enemy and Sarah would freeze it in position.

"I found my sniper's nest" Martha called from the down the hall.

Cayden entered the bathroom to find Martha in a bathtub full of blankets, towels, and winter jackets. "I guess there is a window facing the hotel here" Cayden peered at the brick rectangle. Charlie's face popped up in different locations every minute or two, the only sign of life in the desolate crater.

Fingers clenched on the windowsill, Cayden tried anything to heat himself without his abilities. Unsuccessful in doing so, he settled on perpetual motion and paced to the rearmost bedroom.

He peeked outside at the metal town wall. How did The Four ever reach it, let alone pass it and the watch guards? He rubbed his hands together and blew into them as he shuffled to the bathroom to peer up the fire-lit street toward the flag. Still flapping.

Cayden slouched on the toilet lid, ice crunching under his weight as Martha's blue eyes poked out from her insulated mound of cloth. "So what do you plan on doing if you make it out of here?"

"I... I dunno," Cayden stuttered. Even his words were shivering.

"I mean, will you live in Pirene? Especially after everything Gregory told you?"

"Probably... and maybe it won't be so bad."

"Maybe indeed. So what about your friends here? Will you all stay together?"

"No idea, Martha. I'm really not in a mood for talkin'."

"Not in the mood?"

"Nope." Cayden paused and considered for a moment whether to speak his next thoughts. He did. "And you know what? Why don't you have these complicated chats when we're all together? Or with anyone else? I'm the worst at understandin' 'em anyway."

"But you're the best at listenin' to em'. Also, I prefer one-on-one conversations. It all gets so confusing. The rules of etiquette become so much more complex when more people enter a conversation. Or perhaps the rules become less complex. Or do they just go away? Well, anyway, I settle on stories and advice, less motion for an old woman to keep up with."

Cayden sighed while Martha continued. "Regardless, when you get older, you'll look back on some of the friends you cared about and wonder why you didn't learn more from them. Your generation is so obsessed with literacy, reading, and intelligence, as if that's the end all of communication. A century and a half ago, illiteracy was rampant yet they could speak with unparalleled eloquence. Back then, they would run their mouths all day and I say you will never learn more from a book than a brain. You'll wish you had answers to questions you never asked. Most answers aren't written into a book or a movie; most just disappear under six feet of dirt."