Famine (The Four Horsemen Book 3) Read online

  Now the Reaper looks halfway intrigued. He lifts his scythe and stands.

  Famine steps up to me, his boots clicking against the ground. “What even are you under all that paint?” he says, coming in close. “A cow? A pig?”

  I feel my cheeks heat. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the burn of humiliation. I’m suddenly aware of how many other people are in the room—not just Famine and Elvita, but half a dozen guards—all of them witnessing this.

  The horseman sneers at me. “You thought I’d want your body? Is that it?” His voice is cruel.

  Yes. That’s exactly it.

  “You pathetic creature,” Famine continues, scrutinizing me. “Have you heard nothing of me? I don’t want your putrid flesh.” His eyes flash as they move between me and Elvita. “You two were better off when you hadn’t caught my attention.”

  I feel the energy in the room shift then, and I remember the way the mayor’s family was dragged away not an hour ago. And now that I’m thinking about it, I realize with alarm that though offerings line the nearby wall, the people who brought them are notably absent.

  We have drifted into dangerous waters.

  Next to me, Elvita looks undeterred. “Have you ever bedded a mortal?” she asks, ever the saleswoman.

  Famine’s gaze moves to her, and he cracks a sly smile, like he’s enjoying himself for the first time today. His eyes, however, are as cold as I’ve ever seen them. Sex and flesh seem like the very last thing on his mind.

  “And what if I haven’t? Do you really think a few pumps into this bag of flesh would change anything?”

  I raise my eyebrows. I’m used to vulgar, degrading comments; I’m not used to … I’m not even sure what sort of insult that was.

  Bag of flesh? Bitch please. I know I look good.

  “You clearly haven’t been inside one of my women,” Elvita continues, clinging to this idiotic plan.

  “Your women?” Famine’s attention returns to me.

  Squaring my jaw, I meet his gaze.

  Does he recognize me? Does he know?

  His unsettling green eyes take me in, and they’re so shrewd. There’s no spark of familiarity. If he remembers me, he doesn’t show it.

  “How terrible it must feel,” Famine says, “to be owned and used like property.”

  I open my mouth to tell him he’s wrong, to tell him to fuck off, to tell him that if only I could be alone with him for a moment, I might just jog his memory. Maybe then I can finish that old business between us. When it comes to him, my hope and my hate are old.

  For a second, the horseman hesitates. I think he almost feels it. But then his expression sharpens.

  Famine’s eyes move over our heads. He whistles, gesturing to a few nearby men.

  “Get rid of them with the others.”

  This was a mistake.

  That much is clear when Famine’s men roughly grab me and Elvita, dragging us away.

  “Get your hands off of me!” my madam commands.

  The men ignore her.

  I fight against their grip as well. I only have eyes for the horseman, who resettles himself on the plush chair we found him on, his scythe laid once more across his lap.

  “Don’t you remember me?” The words finally rip free.

  But Famine’s no longer paying attention to us—the ridiculed whore and her desperate madam. His eyes have drifted to the front door, where the next supplicant will be entering.

  “I saved you!” I shout at him as I’m dragged away. The men that hold me and Elvita haul us towards a door that leads out to the back of the mayor’s estate.

  Famine doesn’t so much as look at me. I assumed that once I said something on this subject, he would stop and listen. I hadn’t anticipated that he both wouldn’t recognize me and wouldn’t hear me out.

  Old hurt and indignation bubbles to the surface. If it weren’t for me, neither of us would be here right now.

  “No one else would help you!” I call out to him. I trip a little as one of his guards tows me outside. “No one but me. You were hurt and—” The door slams shut.

  I—I missed my chance.

  I’m still staring at the door when I hear Elvita’s sharp inhale. Then—

  “Jesus fucking Christ.” Her voice is shrill, the pitch of it too high.

  I tear my gaze away from the door, turning to where—

  Holy mother of God.

  Ahead of us is a huge pit, the steep earthen walls of it smooth. Antonio had mentioned once, months and months ago, that he was going to install a pool for his daughters. I remember the conversation only because a pool sounded like a nightmare to upkeep.

  Rich people and their toys.

  Now … now I’m staring at the beginnings of that pool. Only, there are splatters of blood on the stone pavement around it, and inside the earthen pit—

  At first my eyes don’t want to make sense of what I’m seeing. The strangely bent limbs, the blood-soaked bodies, the glassy eyes. Over a dozen people lay in that pit.

  Dear God. No, please, no.

  My nausea rises, and I begin struggling in earnest.

  I hadn’t survived this long to have it all end like this.

  Elvita is cursing as she fights like a wildcat against her captors.

  One of the guards holding Elvita now releases her, and for an instant I think she actually managed to partially free herself. But then the man withdraws a dagger from his hip holster.

  “Please,” she begins to cry. “I will do anyth—”

  He runs her through, stabbing her over and over again before she can even finish begging for her life. I scream as her blood sprays, and I jerk against the men who hold me, feeling like a fish on a hook.

  They kill her. Right in front of me they do it. I scream and scream as she bleeds out.

  That’s when the first knife enters my body—while I’m still watching my friend die. For a moment, my cries cut off, the action taking me by surprise. But then it’s my body the men are stabbing over and over again.

  I can’t catch my breath around the pain. My legs fold as warm liquid trickles down my body.

  Fuck, it hurts. Worse than anything I’ve ever felt. I want to scream, but the sharp agony of it closes up my windpipe.

  I go limp in the men’s arms. They grab me by the legs, hoisting me off the ground. The world tilts, and I finally manage to release a low, tortured moan as my body sways back and forth, back and forth.

  “One … two … three.”

  The men release me, and for a single second, I’m weightless.

  And then I hit the bottom of the pit.

  I think I pass out from the pain, but I can’t be sure. I’m slipping down a hole of agony and delirium. I’m too weak to focus on much of anything else, otherwise I might have noticed the particular hue of the sky above me or the shape of the dead around me. I might have even tried to focus on the arc of my sad, brief life or that I might finally be reunited with my family.

  But the pain crowds my thoughts, and all I really notice over it is how cold I am and how hard it is to breathe.

  My mind drifts and my eyes close.

  This is the end.

  I feel death creeping into my bones. This is where people rally and fight for their lives.

  I don’t.

  I give in.

  Chapter 4

  I have this recurring dream of Famine walking through a field of sugarcane. His hand reaches idly out, his fingertips brushing the stalks. Beneath his touch the plants curl and blacken, the decay spreading out around him until the entire field has withered away.

  It’s eerily silent. I can’t even hear the wind whistling through those dying stalks, though they sway in some phantom breeze.

  I’m back there now, standing like a sentinel as the Reaper moves through the field, killing that crop. There’s another, darker figure that looms somewhere behind me, but I don’t pay him any attention.

  As I watch, Famine moves farther from me, and as he does so, the silence
seems to close in on me, until it’s a deafening ring in my ears.

  From behind me, a strong hand grips my shoulder, squeezing tightly.

  Lips press against my ear.

  “Live,” the voice breathes.

  That’s what wakes me.

  My eyes flutter open. I squint against the heavy, oppressive shine of the sun, the pungent smell of decay thick in my nostrils.

  Hazy with pain and weakness, I draw in one shaky breath, then another.

  I shift a little. At the movement, sharp, blinding pain rips across my torso.

  Fucking ow.

  I go still, waiting for the pain to abate. It does … somewhat, dulling to a steady throb. I take a shallow breath, inhaling bits of dirt as I do so.

  I cough, and Satan’s balls, it feels like I’ve crossed through the gates of hell. The pain reignites.

  Hurts so damn bad.

  Dirt shifts over my body, skittering off me as I push myself up. My arm brushes something soft, something that isn’t dirt. Then it’s my leg that touches that same object.

  My teeth grind against the pain as I force myself to sit up. I cry out at the action, my body hurting in a dozen different places.

  Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.

  When the pain and nausea pass, I look around me. Vaguely, it registers that I’m sitting in that unfinished pool, and that someone has thrown mounds and mounds of dirt back into the craterous pit. But that’s not what’s truly snagging my attention.

  Little more than a meter away, I see a face peering up through the soil like some newly sprouted plant, its mouth slightly agape, dirt lightly sprinkled across its open eyes, which stare blankly into the distance.

  A sound slips out of me as my gaze darts over the rest of my surroundings. To my left I see a leg and part of someone’s torso sticking out from the dirt, to my right I see a shoulder and the arm of yet another body.

  My hand braces itself against something lumpy and vaguely hard. I glance down only to realize this whole time I’ve been pushing against the face of the mayor’s wife, two of my fingers are brushing against her teeth.

  My scream comes out as a choked cry.

  Dear God.

  I snatch my hand away, causing a dozen flies to take flight before resettling.

  The woman’s daughters are laying nearby. All of them then haphazardly covered with dirt.

  Buried in a shallow grave. Left to die.

  And me along with them.

  Elvita.

  My eyes dart around, searching frantically for the woman who took me in five years ago.

  I don’t see her, but the longer I stare about, the more I realize that the pit is moving. There are others who survived the rampage, others like me who have been buried alive.

  And now that I’m actually paying attention, I can hear their soft, dying groans. Those of us still living might not be for long. My mind rallies against that thought.

  I want to live.

  I will live.

  And then I will get my revenge.

  I can’t say how many minutes it takes to force myself to my feet. The whole time I’m sure that one of Famine’s men is going to come out here and check on us to make sure the dead stay dead. That all my effort will come to a swift, sharp end. But no one comes.

  I dust the dirt off my body. It’s everywhere—in my hair, down my shirt, coating my clothes, between my toes and inside my mouth. I’m too cowardly to look at the wounds on my chest, but I bet if I did, I’d see dirt in them as well.

  Pushing myself up, my gaze sweeps over the pit. The sides of it are too steep to simply walk out of, but thankfully one part of the pool is shallower than the other, and in this shallow area someone thought to create steps leading out.

  But in order to get over to those steps, I have to walk over the partially buried bodies.

  Pinching my eyes shut, I draw in a deep breath, release it, then start to move.

  Instantly, the pain sharpens, stealing my breath and making my movement almost unbearably agonizing.

  I take one shaky step, then two, then three.

  Just a little farther.

  My foot slips on a bloody arm, and I fall. I hit the ground.

  Blinding pain—

  I think I pass out because I’m suddenly blinking my eyes open even though I don’t remember closing them.

  Once again I’m lying on a dirt-covered corpse, my cheek nestled against something wet and sticky. The pain, the horror—all of it has my nausea rising. I barely have time to turn my head to the side before I retch.

  My entire body is shaking, both from exertion, and from my terrible reality.

  I let myself lay there for a moment, my face crumpling as I begin to sob. I don’t think I can do it. I want to live, but this is all too much.

  Those awful flies land on me and that is what causes me to snap.

  I will not be food for some fucking flies. I won’t.

  I force down the last of my nausea and, gritting my teeth against the pain, force myself up once more.

  Again, I begin walking towards those steps. And this time, I don’t fall. I make it up the steps and out of that deadly pool.

  A relieved cry slips out once my feet touch solid ground. But it only lasts a few seconds. I can still hear the faint moans of the still living.

  I glance back at the pool looking for anyone still alive.

  Maybe Elvita survived. It’s possible.

  I stare out at the sea of partially covered bodies. I don’t see the madam, but I do see the mayor, though he’s almost unrecognizable, his face drenched in blood. He’s one of the ones still clinging to life.

  I wrap a hand around my stomach to stave off as much of the pain as I can, and then I begin to stumble over the edge of the pool nearest him.

  He was an inconsiderate lover and a terrible tipper, but he didn’t deserve to die like this—and his wife and children certainly didn’t as well.

  When I get close, I crouch next to the edge of the pool and reach down. I don’t know how I’m going to get an injured adult male out of this pit, but I can’t not help him.

  He shakes his head, seeming to choke on air. Only now do I notice the tear tracks that snake down his cheeks.

  “Take my hand,” I insist, pleading with him.

  He doesn’t.

  His dark eyes find mine. “Kill … me …” His voice is barely a whisper.

  I give him a distraught look. “What?”

  “Please …” he wheezes.

  I rear back, horrified. My wild eyes look everywhere but him, and that’s when I see the back of Elvita’s blood-drenched body.

  A sound slips from my lips. For a moment, the mayor’s plea is forgotten. I rise to my feet, then stumble over to the edge of the pool nearest her, my vision darkening from the pain. I don’t bother to muffle my cries, even though a small part of me worries that it will draw the attention of Famine’s men.

  I fall to my knees and frantically reach for her. She’s close enough for me to touch, but the moment my fingers brush her, I know she’s gone. Her skin feels nothing like living flesh.

  A sob slips from my lips.

  Elvita is gone.

  Truth be told, I have—I mean, I had—a complicated relationship with this woman, one that was equal parts resentment and gratitude. I know she used me—exploited me even—but she was also a friend and confidante, and she protected me from the worst of our world. This plan of hers—to throw one of her girls at the horseman—wasn’t supposed to end like this.

  Over the last five years, my old anger towards Famine stayed with me like a scab, and now it’s as though he picked it open.

  He took everything from me twice.

  It’s time he pays.

  Once I’ve gathered myself, I stand, moving away from the pool and the flies that circle it.

  All this time I’ve been too distracted to notice that neither Famine nor any of his men have approached this backyard. And for that matter, the pit is filled in. Their business h
ere must be done.

  I stumble towards the front of the house, grinding my teeth at the impossible pain.

  I shouldn’t be alive, and how badly I’m regretting that fact right now, when my body feels flayed wide open.

  I round to the front of the house. The front door hangs open. The place looks abandoned.

  How long was I lying inside that pit?

  I stagger home, taking in shallow, ragged breaths. I have to pause numerous times to catch my breath when my vision clouds or the pain and exhaustion become too unbearable. I gasp out hushed cries.

  As I walk, I skirt around large plants that have broken through the asphalt road. Perhaps if I’d been less focused on making it through each step I would have noticed how quiet my surroundings had become. Quiet and empty. I would’ve noticed the putrid smell stinging my nose and the road’s altered appearance.

  I’m more than halfway home when I finally notice the drone of buzzing flies, a sound that’s accompanied me for most of the walk. Even then, I don’t process the noise until I lean against one of those trees growing in the middle of the street—a tree, now that I think about it, that wasn’t there the last time I used this road …

  The buzzing is nearly deafening, and that’s when I finally realize something’s not right.

  I glance above me, towards the sound, and I swallow a scream. Dangling from the boughs of an enormous paraná pine tree is a twisted body, the feet bare and discolored. As I watch, the corpse gently sways in the breeze. A swarm of flies circles what I think used to be an old man, flying and landing and flying and landing round and round the corpse.

  As my eyes move over the canopy of leaves, I notice another body, this one a young woman. Her limbs are tangled up in the branches, her eyes bulging.

  I’ve seen this before—Lord help me but I have.

  I’ve seen trees like this one grow spontaneously from the ground, and I can easily imagine how it plucked men and women off the street and squeezed the life out of them like an anaconda squeezes prey.

  Not that it makes it any easier to process.

  I lean over once again and heave. But there’s nothing left in my stomach to expel.

  I think of how all us townspeople lined the road, waiting for the Reaper, our arms full of gifts meant to placate him. Then I remember his face when he ordered my death. All because I caught his attention.